Authorities say a dispute over a $40 video game started a tragic chain of events.

They just keep coming, don’t they? I’m not sure which story is more sickening – the one about the girl getting gang raped in Richmond or the more recent one about a boy being set on fire in Broward County, Florida. Each story is heartbraking; each story involves yet another young life being destroyed.

Today, standing in front of TV cameras, Sherry Jarvis, the mother of two boys who among others are accused of having doused 15-year-old Michael Brewer with alchohol and setting him on fire, apologized on behalf of her family. She was accompanied by her husband and two daughters.

“We’d just like to express how sorry we are,” Jarvis said, according to this article from CNN. The authorities in Broward County “believe that Brewer was attacked in a chain of events that began when he did not pay one of the five boys $40 for a video game.” A bike belonging to Brewer’s father was stolen, an arrest was made, and revenge was carried out on Brewer.

“This is a horrible incident never should have occurred,” said Jarvis. Michael Brewer is fighting for his life at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Burn Center in Miami.

I can sympathize with the shock that the Jarvis family must be going through right now but this wasn’t the right time to go in front of the TV cameras; especially not while this poor kid is hanging in the balance. The focus right now should be on doing everything possible to make sure that Brewer survives his horrific injuries.

A statement delivered via the print media would have been more sensitive and appropriate.

And why would the Jarvis parents have their teenage daughters standing with them for a statement like that? Were there daughters involved in what happened? Did they need to have their faces inexorably linked to this horrible event for the rest of their lives?

Please, just stay out of the limelight. At least until Michael’s condition has been upgraded.

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with Michael, his family, and the family of the accused. It’s a mad world out there.