77-year-old Bert Atienza addressed a teenage Walmart employee for nearly hitting his wife with a heavy shopping cart and not acknowledging it. He wanted the 17-year-old female worker to say "excuse me," if not apologize, to his wife of 43 years. Rather than doing so and going on with her shift, the girl threw a can at the couple and then called her parents, who then found the man and attacked him.
42-year-old Erica Mitchell and 44-year-old Travis White, the teen's parents, punched Atienza in the face and threw him to the ground. Atienza's wife called for them to stop the attack, citing her husband's heart problems, but the pair continued to kick the man while he was on the floor. After they felt their daughter had been avenged, the two left the bleeding man lying in his wife's arms.
Atienza wanted to stand up but was told to remain where he was as the ambulance was en route. When his wife looked at him again, the man had lost consciousness. The next day, Atienza died as a result of blunt-force trauma to the head. All of this because the couple went grocery shopping after church on Sunday, June 7, 2026.
The employee was also arrested for assault and battery, conspiracy to commit a felony, and aggravated malicious wounding. She is presently being held at a juvenile facility. At the time, there are no announced plans to try the female as an adult.
White's lawyer claims he did not go into the situation with the intent to kill Atienza, but "they went to do as any parent would do, to try and make sure that their daughter was safe and then this situation kind of erupted; it was like spontaneous almost."
Three things about this story leave me deeply disturbed. The first is that the defense attorney James Grokoletti is shamelessly painting his client with the "We Don't Know How This Happened" brush. Sir, we know exactly how this happened: a teenage girl who cannot regulate her behavior called on her parents to teach a man who could be her grandfather a lesson for disrespecting her. After she threw the can, the couple continued shopping. Security footage will confirm this girl was not in danger.
Kids in school today are subjected to Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL. This curriculum is supposed to help the students process volatile emotions like anger and embarrassment and make reasonable choices. Norfolk, Va., schools incorporate SEL into everything from their staff professional development to dedicated lesson plans through 12th grade. Norfolk Superintendent Dr. Jeff Rose may want to revisit the delivery of this material because, obviously, nothing took root in this girl's exposure.
The second thing that bothers me is Walmart's use of artificial intelligence to monitor aisle security in real time. Why was no one made aware of the initial altercation that resulted in the employee throwing a can at a customer? Usually, AI has triggers in place to notify a manager via text message in the event of a spill, attempted shoplifting, and, yes, a fight. Either the system failed, the management failed, or a combination of both that would permit anyone within the store to behave in such a way.
Related: AI Regulation: If Bill Gates Is for It, I’m Against It. But Is It That Simple?
AI filters are far too expensive to simply not work. Norfolk has a crime rate that is higher than the national average. This particular Walmart location is known as a high-risk area for property damage, theft, and physical altercations. I sincerely hope Walmart cooperates with Mrs. Atienza's legal team to establish which link specifically failed in the response protocol.
The final element of this story that does not sit well with me is something similar to this, but on a much less dramatic scale, happened to me. I was teaching middle school English Language Arts at an urban charter school in Tampa, Fla., when one of my students, an 8th-grade female, was seen in a common area with a high school-aged male who was not enrolled. The entire staff was made aware of this boy's presence as a volunteer working for service hours and, under no circumstances, was he to be interacting with that particular female student.
When I saw the two engaged in PG-13 physical behavior, I did not hesitate to serve as safety enforcement. First, I asked the boy to step away from the female; he did not. Then, I asked the girl to step away from the male; she tried, but he held her. The look on her face indicated she wanted to comply but could not due to his physical restraint. I stepped between the two of them, putting him to my back and using my body to shield her. The young man held tight and, when I used my shoulder to force space between the two, he began yelling at me about "his rights."
The female student scuttled away to her friends, and I was left dealing with an irate 16-year-old boy. The situation was escalating, so I placed my hand on his upper back and suggested we take a walk to the principal's office where he could air his grievances. We went. Lunch ended. My 6th grade class was underway when two squad cars entered the parking lot. I was called to the principal's office. The boy called his parents. His parents called the police. I was accused of assault.
Fortunately, the security camera footage exonerated me entirely, but the hour needed to do so was excruciating. I did what the school asked me to do and, clearly, what the female student needed me to do. As a result, I was left to question if I'd be walked out in handcuffs, who would pick my very young children up from school, and how to get in touch with my husband, who worked in a highly secured building where personal phones were not permitted.
My situation was far less intense than a physical beating, but I relay it because I have a modicum of understanding for how scared and helpless the Atienzas would have felt in those moments. Somewhere along the way, many parents stopped parenting and became vigilante enforcers. This is probably around the time we started telling every child they were "the best" and they could "be anything," even if they were subpar. Participation trophies became a slippery slope, I suppose.
Stories of teens wreaking havoc on communities are not new, but there does seem to be an uptick. Last week a college student in York, Penn. was dragged off of her front porch by her hair and beaten until she blacked out, not once but twice. More than 70 officers in Aurora, Colo. responded to a mob of 500 teenagers "taking over" a shopping center. Nine people were shot in Raleigh, N.C., when thousands of teens took to the streets.
I spent my undergraduate years at Baylor University studying 20th century political systems' manipulation of teens to achieve their objectives. Mao in China mobilized children as Red Guards to report adults for Western crimes. Hitler in Germany built a youth movement to do the same. Castro's policies were regularly enforced by young comrades. Why? Psychology calls it the Invincibility Fable, the common egocentric idea children often hold that tells them they are immune to consequence because they are smarter, more clever, or indestructible.
I am not putting any American politician on the same playing field as the aforementioned tyrants. What I am alluding to is the pattern of children being empowered by their superiors to behave in ways that enforce this fable. The culture nurtured in schools is magnified on social media and, suddenly, everyone is untouchable. The only problem is if everyone is invincible, then no one is invincible.
Perhaps this Walmart employee's plight will be the wake-up call for an entire generation, but I won't hold my breath.
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