It’s possible this guy was just nuts and that’s that, but it sounds like a religious fueled delusion to me.

To be fair here—and I think religion is as stupid as you do—yes, the guy was nuts.  Most religious people aren’t that kind of wacko, and wacko people who hear voices and see demons are dangerously crazy, whether we can tag it with “religion” or not.

Religion and certain types of mental illness have one thing in common: They justify any imaginable atrocity—all for the good of the victim, of course.

My educated guess is that he had a schizophrenic break and was experiencing auditory hallucinations; he likely thought the “voices” were coming from the infant.  The “demon” part of the equation is undoubtedly based in religious belief.  Were it not, he’d have characterized it differently.

Self-preservation would normally kick in at some point and end the attack. However, with this guy it never did, because he thought killing the baby was itself an act of self-preservation.

It’s a real tragedy, and religions encouraging a belief in demons certainly didn’t help.

In Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan suggested that legends of the incubus and of the ‘little people’ have been transferred to UFO abductions as popular mythology changes.  The mental illness is the constant, and latches onto whatever’s available.

Sometime in the future expect to see someone kill their child to get the computer chips out.

Well at least there was a happy ending to the story.

Well at least there was a happy ending to the story.

Only if the officer doesn’t need counseling and let’s not forget about the surviving relatives, either.

“He wasn’t acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming,” said witness Lisa Mota. “He said, ‘I’ve just got to get the demons out of him.’ He was very calm.’ ”

I love how the popular concept of mental illness is that people who suffer from it must surely have to be “running around or screaming”. 

Sure it’s easier to identify someone with an illness like schizophrenia if they are doing that, but I think it’s odd that even with the evidence provided (the fact that he did something that nobody in their right mind would do)post hoc, the woman still tried to defend the man’s sanity. The fact that he was very calm while saying what he said and killing his child would make me believe he was especially ill if I saw it.  I doubt I would have been able to stand back and idly watch him do it either.

My question is “What is Wrong with the Witness” whom seemingly stood by a watched him do this to that 2 years old child?  WTF People?

Hi, Mrs. SEB.  I was under the impression that the witnesses were elderly.  I could be wrong though.

If my last act on Earth was to try to stop someone from killing a child, that would be fine.

There’s a more detailed news item about it on SFGate.com

McKain, of Crows Landing, said she drove past Sergio Aguiar’s pickup Saturday night on West Bradbury Road and, at first, thought he was “kicking garbage or something.”

But she said her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, told her to back up and put her headlights on Aguiar.

“Sure enough, he was kicking a baby around,” McKain said.

She said the child was unconscious, his clothes falling off, and looked liked a “rag doll.” Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, showed Aguiar his badge and ordered him to stop, but Aguiar calmly said something like, “It’s just trash,” McKain said.

Aguiar also said, “Look how they make toys now,” McKain said, and at one point asked Robinson for a knife.

When Robinson went into the pickup to turn on the hazard lights, Aguiar stopped kicking the boy, helped him find the flashers, then went back to his attack, McKain said. She said there was blood in the truck’s cab.

[...] when a Modesto police officer jumped off a helicopter and ordered Aguiar to stop at gunpoint, he raised his middle finger and continued his attack.

Officer Jerry Ramar, standing in a cow pasture behind an electric fence, shot Aguiar once in the forehead, the witnesses and police said. Aguiar died at the scene.

“Good shot, thank God,” said Deborah McKain, a 51-year-old resident of nearby Crows Landing who pulled up to the beating scene on a cracked two-lane road while on her way home from dinner in Turlock, 10 miles to the northeast. “That guy needed to die.”

I find Mrs. McKain’s comment above interesting considering she didn’t really have a clue as to why the man was doing what he was doing.

Not all of the witnesses were elderly:

Another witness, 23-year-old Lisa Mota, said Aguiar “wasn’t acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming. He said, ‘I’ve just got to get the demons out of him.’ He was very calm.’ “

[...] McKain said her son, her son’s wife and her son’s friend were also there, as were a woman and a man who pulled up in separate cars. She estimated that she saw Aguiar kick or stomp his son at least 100 times, but she said no one tried to stop him because he appeared to be dangerous. One fear was that “maybe he had something in his pocket,” she said.

Also, McKain said, it was clear that “the baby was gone.”

Prompted by Mrs. SEB, I just looked again with regard to the witnesses. 

I was wrong.  According to the San Jose Mercury News, the chief of the volunteer fire department was first on the scene, and tried to stop the attack, but the attacker just threw him off.  A pickup truck with three people in their 20s showed up, and a young man jumped out of the truck and also tried to stop the attack, but he also was just thrown off. A 23-year-old woman hid in her car, and I’m not sure about the other two young people in the truck.  The chief’s son called 911 twice.

Quite frankly the fact that this could be done, along with the reaction of the crowd, is one of the most chilling things that I have ever heard in 15 years (admittedly, throughout only ten of which i was olde enough to be able to comprehend it to any meaningful level). I had the theme from the film 28 weeks later playing, and quite frankly it conjured up quite similar images.

Barry:

wacko people who hear voices and see demons are dangerously crazy

Has anyone READ the Bible?
Has ANYONE read the Bible?
What does a “prophet” do?
Ditto Koran, insert any “holy” book name.
And the fundies wonder why we find their dogma a little socially unfriendly. Like Mark Twain’s comments about witches, one wonders whether to laugh or cry.

Has anyone READ the Bible?
Has ANYONE read the Bible?

Oh come on now! Of course they read the Bible, especially all those good parts with the red letters where that Jesus guy talks about all that stuff about getting saved, and not judging people lest they be judged and all that stuff.  Also, those parts where he talks about getting into heaven, those are everybody’s favorites! Who wants to read that darn Old Testament anyhow?  It’s OLD for crying in the sink!

@decrepitoldfool:
About interpreting things differently based on your personal experiences.

Two sisters I knew a number of years ago experienced bouts of auditory hallucinations. However, their reactions and interpretations of these differed immensely:
The oldest of the two had a long history of interest in new-age and occult themes, and her interpretation was that the spirits or ghosts were talking to her.
The other younger sister had a more down-to-earth point of view and she believed that the voices were either radio transmissions or government surveillance.

My question is “What is Wrong with the Witness” whom seemingly stood by a watched him do this to that 2 years old child?  WTF People?

First, there’s the whole “Holy shit, he can’t really be stomping a kid, this can’t really be happening” that will likely occur in a witness’ thoughts.  Hell, the article had me stunned just reading it.  Besides, Aguilar helped the first witness find the lights in his truck.  That and being calm.  Yeah, you’d expect some rabid frothing, not calm.  I can understand the hesitation and disbelief in the first witnesses.

There’s not enough info to really make a judgment on the witnesses intervening.  Physical altercations do depend on physical size and training.  Aguilar may have had some kind of training (sports/martial arts) or was physically stronger/larger than the witnesses, since he just “threw them off” when they tried to stop him.  The article also makes it sound as if none of the witnesses had any training.