Lynchings are alive and well in South Carolina
Pupils charged with lynching in fight with teacher
It’s both not as bad as it sounds while also being even worse. Two students from Brentwood Middle School have been charged with lynching their teacher. The confusion you are feeling right now is because progressive lawmakers in South Carolina have defined lynching as “any act of violence by two or more people against another”.
A middle school student is in juvenile detention after she and her sister were charged with hitting a teacher.
North Charleston police arrested the 13- and 14-year-old Brentwood Middle School students last week and charged them with lynching.
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The teacher was slapped in the face and the girls repeatedly hit her when the teacher attempted to break up a fight between the sisters, according to a police report.
The teacher was struck after she put one of the girls in a headlock. Hmmm. Two sisters are fighting, a teacher tries to break them up. They won’t listen. She physically restrains one. They don’t stop fighting and she is hit. Yup, sounds like a lynching to me.
Should the girls be in trouble? Of course they should. They shouldn’t have been fighting. They should have stopped when the teacher told them. They should not under any circumstances have hit her. But arresting them for lynching? That is just completely ridiculous.
(Tip credit to Precinct 333.)
Lynching used to mean hanging a black man. This is the “progressive” definition.
The progressive definition cheapens the meaning of the word, and deadens people to hearing news of a ‘lynching’. There’s nothing wrong at all with using the standard term for what these girls did: assault.
Apparently in South Carolina “lynching” is a legal term and the girls violated it. There are laws we all think are not appropriate or appropriately named. We are still guilty if we violate them. The girls need to be in jail — we cannot allow students to fight in school and especially to hit teachers. It doesn’t matter what we call it — the girls and their parents need to remember what happens if they fight in school.
For those of you who aren’t teachers, remember that the teacher is liable if she doesn’t break up the fight and can get injured if they do break up the fight. Probably there was a crowd of kids surrounding the girls egging them on — usual operating proceedure in middle school and some of the kids were probably looking for the possibility to get involved — probably by hitting the teacher. Whatever it takes to make it clear to students that they must keep their hands to themselves and especially not hit teachers. All students who hit teachers should go out in handcuffs.
barry
An 8 year old in my state wrapped the remains of his Chinese dinner in a package, wrote “BOMB” on it, and put it on the sidewalk in front of his school.
He was charged criminally. The charge read that he possessed a “weapon of mass destruction.” Idiot judge found him guilty too.
“Apparently in South Carolina “lynching” is a legal term and the girls violated it. There are laws we all think are not appropriate or appropriately named.” So what is the penalty for “lynching” in SC? It’s either way too heavy for a simple case of assault or way too light for a real lynching…
It may be true that South Carolina’s law says that what they did was “lynching”, and therefore may be guilty of it.
However, calling what they did a “lynching” is like charging a kid who allows another kid having an asthma attack a puff of his inhaler a “drug pusher”. Or being in possession of a nail clipper and being arrested on “weapons charges”. Or calling a 17-year-old who has sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend a “sex offender”. (Or worse, “sexual predator”, because they had sex on multiple occasions.)
It demeans the real meaning of the word.
Barry:
You think a 13 year old girl should go to JAIL for hitting her teacher? No, not jail. Expelled from school, sentenced to community service, and a butt whoopin from the parents seems to be in order. Why do you suggest jail? What would that accomplish, other than costing ME money, and overcrowding the already-overcrowded jails?
Recently had lunch with a teacher who dived into a fight where one high school student was methodically beating another student’s head into the floor. He separated his shoulder in the process and will wear a arm sling for several weeks. The kid who did the beating high tailed it out of Iowa with his family back to where their kin were in Atlanta, Georgia. Do I believe kids who strike teachers should be criminally charged? It depends on the situation and severity but Barry’s points are well taken — for incidents of students striking teachers, if the worst consequence is suspension (which probably doesn’t frighten these kids at all — its vacation), then at what point is the lesson that this is unacceptable driven home? Granted by high school, its probably too late. But what about the climate for students who are there to learn?
And I’ve heard about the “lynching” statute in S.C. I agree it demeans the original meaning of the term and should be dropped.
As long as we are on the definition of legal terms:
Assault is a threatened or attempted physical attack by someone who appears to be able to cause bodily harm if not stopped � this normally applies to verbal threats � like one person telling another �I am going to kill you!�.
Battery is the actual use of force.
Aggravated assault is using a weapon.
That is where I believe it gets convoluted.
The order of progression would be assault (verbal), battery (physical contact) then aggravated �assault� (using a weapon to attack).
Assault and battery is first verbal then physical.
Common mis-usage causes the mistake.
This would actually make an �Assault Weapon�, i.e. M-16 or AK-47, either a �Battery Weapon� or an �Aggravated Assault Weapon�.
Correctly used the term �Assault Weapon� might be a bullhorn, public address system, radio or TV broadcast used to threaten others. Like the Evening News does every day.
I suspect the media would have a problem using the correct terms as they wouldn�t have the easy flow off the tongue they love so much.
I dont care what you call it lynching, assault,or assault and battery. My son was jumped by 2 kids and his jaw broken in 3 places and now is suffering with traumatic stress dissorder, his is affraid to go to school and was well on his way to medical school and not now because he ran into someones girlfriend in a hall way. it really upsets me and i don’t care what you call it i want justice
i have a charge pending, its lynching, what i did could be considered lynching , but its more or less assault, what theres girls did was nothing more than a cat fight gone wrong.. political correctness…yeah ok, im 17, they are mearly children, if they want to make examples out of people do it to the onesthat deserve it
lynching! give me a break! this totally and completely cheapens what “lynching” truly is. we all know that it means the hanging of black men or women. this is disgusting. while i totally agree that these girls should be punished, calling it a lynching is just stupid. it’s almost as if they’re simplfying the horrible injustices suffered by black families for the past 4 centuries.
First off, “Lynching” is an act of hanging or excercising mob justice on anyone! Not just black persons. So, stop turning an attack on a teacher as civil rights argument. These students need to be punished based on their actions, not by what term the courts decribe their actions as. Whether that be expulsion, jail time, or restitution. It’s scary when we’ve come to a point in society where these aggregious activitiies are overshadowed by a misuse of the English language. Sticks and stones, people…sticks and stones.