13 year-old faces criminal charges for note
Honor student arrested in connection with menacing note
A middle school student at Pointe South Middle School in the Clayton County School District made a list of people who made her angry.
The girl, a gifted student, created the list of 12 or 13 names of students, said something about the list to other students and then tore it up and throw it away, Clayton County schools spokesman Charles White said.
But after members of the school administration learned of the incident, they conducted interviews and reassembled the list before turning it over to Clayton County police, White said.
She destroyed the list herself and they went through the trash to reassemble it in order to get her charged with a crime.
In the school system’s opinion, the “list was created more out of an act of frustration than malicious intent,” White said.
“Even with this concept, they treated it very seriously,” he said. “This is being treated with the highest regard. In situations such as this, we tend to act on the side of caution.”
They are acting on the side of idiocy. They didn’t see malicious intent but went out of their way to get her charged with a crime. They are also offering counseling to the children who were on the list as well as their parents. People who know about the list only because the school took the pieces out of the garbage to reassemble them and then contacted all of the people on the list.
The girl, who has no record of discipline problems, has been suspended and is being charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public school.
(Tip credit to Tori in Texas)
This isn’t zt. A five day suspension for expressing anger in a note and then tearing up the note isn’t enough; she may actually be allowed to complete her education. I think there is a little tolerance slipping through here.
Holy overreactions, Batman.
I can’t even formulate a cohesive response to this. I’m going to just sit here and simmer…
The incident began Friday at Pointe South Middle School when some other students reported that the girl had shown them a list of students she said she wanted “eliminated,”
I see you forgot to quote that bit. You said ’she said something about that list to another student.’ That phrase, the phrase you used, doesn’t appear anywhere in the site you linked to.
Shall we try again?
Harvey, that is taken verbatim and presented in a block quote. It was (and is still) most certainly in the article.
The girl, a gifted student, created the list of 12 or 13 names of students, said something about the list to other students and then tore it up and throw it away, Clayton County schools spokesman Charles White said.
Dosent really make a difference Harvey, the school over reacted. This is the kind of thing that makes question the future of our society. How long do you think before they start trying to police our thoughts. This would be a prime time to start hanging these over zealous SOBs out to dry. Where are the parents? I am sorry you all may not agree with me but if parents are going to let this happen to their children then perhaps we need to start screening before allowing people to procreate. If My kid was going to see time for this kind of stupid BS, im affraid I would no choice to join him. I would be placing bets with other inmates as to who got out first me from prison or the Crack pot from his coma. Im sorry there is absolutely no reason for adults to be actively trying to ruin a childs life. and any adult that dose is no better than a child abuser or kidnapper or worse. This is not to say i am advocate of violence, I am not sugesting that people go off and beat the tar out of every school offical thats makes a mistake, not by any means. But if nothing else works hey.
The worst part of it is all this Zero tolerance krap took of because of columbine, well colembine had zero tolerance policies on the books and look how good it worked there. May a few but kickings could save a few lives.
Ah, yes… There’s me relying on a search tool instead of reading the article thoroughly. I do apologise.
However, you did fail to quote the ’students she said she wanted eliminated’ bit!
Writing a list and ‘expressing anger’ one thing, saying ’she wanted them eliminated’ is another - but then again it all depends on how you say it - casually saying ‘yeah I want to get rid of them’ is quite different from fuming and sulking and contstantly ranting about your hitlist. Kinda hard to work out from the article how seriously she meant it.
That’s a good point and I’ll explain why I went with the quote that I did.
I generally try not to overquote in my posts and will take one statement out of similar ones. I decided to take the school official’s statement over the reported student statement for two reasons. First, she herself destroyed the note. Second, the school came to the conclusion that she was acting out of frustration and not malice.
Considering those two items the portion I quoted more accurately reflected the circumstances of the event.
Well I want every one who was a part of putting that note back together and going after that girl “Eliminated”. I do. there have been a lot of people I have read about on this board eliminated. I have no problem telling people that they should be Hung. or that I wouldnt mind mind being the one to operate the lever. It is called venting. People do it. You do it. maybe not in the same way but you do do it. The girl was obviously mad, better that she right a note talk about it and get it off her chest than do somthing absolutley thoughtless and stupid like the actions stated in my last post. (Whitch was again just venting.) But these schools and infact even some laws consider the thought and the action to be the same if theought is comunicated to any one. that is a hop away from policing thoughts. are you ready to have some creep guy wandering around probing you mind for Terroristic thoughts. it sounds stupid but if they could find away to do it I bet they would.
So she said she wanted them eliminated. Big deal. She didn’t say she INTENDED TO DO THE ELIMINATING HERSELF. Here’s a First Amendment twist for you - what if a student prays for certain people to be removed from their sphere of experience? Could we arrest a student for copying/reciting the 35th Psalm, which is a pretty direct plea for God to take harsh action against those persecuting the psalmist?
I’d like to see a couple hundred students at a high school get together and organize a list making campaign. They all make a list of 10 people they don’t like, and carry them around for a week, and make sure the administration knows about it. It would be funny to see them deal with the prospect of trying to prosecute/expell 200 students, who all agree they did it as a joke. Maybe they’d ask Homeland Security to pull the 101st Airborne out of Afghanistan to deal with the threat.
I guess these school administrators have never been angry at anyone. They have never had an emotional reaction to any one or anything-ever. Wait thats it! Beam me up Scotty, the shool system is being run by Vulcans!
Mike
I do not see why in the world making a list no matter what you say about th people on it is such a big deal. I am thinking maybe the police should bring in everyone in the local area that is a FBI agent since they have a list of people to “Eliminate”. The difference is they call there a 10 most wanted list.
Good Lord, people… Am I wasting my time with my silly little oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” in the Marine Corps when there are crackpots like this stifling and twisting the minds of our children every day?
I guess the sickeningly litigious society is finally begin to reap what it hath sown. Our true reward will be seeing what kind of generation of Americans this brings about. It’s not exactly the type of thing to inspire hope.
-Mike
PS- The oath is “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. Maybe some Point South Middle School faculty just made MY list!
PPS- Just a joke, folks. Really.
Good Lord, people… Am I wasting my time with my silly little oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” in the Marine Corps when there are crackpots like this stifling and twisting the minds of our children every day?
I guess the sickeningly litigious society is finally begin to reap what it hath sown. Our true reward will be seeing what kind of generation of Americans this brings about. It’s not exactly the type of thing to inspire hope.
-Mike
PS- The oath is “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. Maybe some Point South Middle School faculty just made MY list!
PPS- Just a joke, folks. Really.
Just another example of how far our public schools have gone to extremes. This incident at Pointe South is very similar to the one that happened to my middle school son 4 years ago. He too wrote a note, copied it, and placed in into lockers of kids he thought would enjoy it. The note had to do with starting a ‘revolution, and killing off a few of bad people’
That landed him in jail, and eventually my wife and I found ourselves there too. You see, we did not want to allow the police to haul him away for such a trivial case.
From that day until now he has not been in public school. Too bad our teachers are so involved with everything thing else, except teaching students…
Hi:
This is just one of many cases in which public educational institutions over-react. As a physician with decades of experience, I have seen many situations in which school staff respond to similar situations by bringing in swat teams and the like. Teachers are trained to be teachers, which I am not. With proper training and experience, it is not difficult to identify children with emotional problems. I find it to be easy. Most educators do not have that skill and will not admit it, while I’ll acknowledge that my field is not education. When are they going to begin to act in the interests of the students by making professional assessments, thereby benefitting and protecting all the parties involved?
Occasionally, I have been fortunate enough to have the police ask me for input, providing me with a hypothetical scenario and asking my opinion, when if fact, we all know that the party accused is a patient of mine. This then gives me an opportunity to give them an honest assessment which usually prevents a child’s future from being ruined, while assuring that the community will be safe. These situations are a lot more common than most people appreciate. Usually, it turns out to be something the child did as a lark and was nothing serious.
We really need to do a better job of evaluation instead of over-reacting.
D. Marsh, D.O.
The real facts are a little more complex than the simplistic yet logical comments here. School administrators are damned if they do or if they don’t.
Quite simply if the list came to light a week after the “supposedly” innocent girl had gone and poisened the persons on the list, the administrators would now really face an onslaught of criticism.
What are they to do? We actually know nothing of the girl but what little we have read. Who do we rely on, if not the teachers? My sense is that they way over reacted.. do they know something we don’t? “Never in trouble” before doesn’t mean that she may not have some traits that have caused folks to err on the side of caution..
Good judgement is the key. What we really don’t seem to know is whether good judgement has been used in this case. Is there a test? In most cases one has to rely on people who know the child. How many stories of the nice neighbor next door have we heard who later runs amok.
What is worse, of course, is when a perfectly innocent child is caught in a machine larger than she.
The price of innocence has gone up. Be forwarned: you have to stay alert, and pay attention to the effects of even the simplest comments (or lists). It is the times. Fear, violence and its glorification on our TV’s every night of the week affects school administrators and children alike.
Thank-you Hollywood.
Look at what we spend hours a week watching. Where do all these ideas come from? Do YOU really think we can remain innocent from the effects of this polution?
These, plus the actual acts played out on the news are part of a society with less moral restraints than in the past.
What one seems to see over and over again are these over re-actions on the part of officials. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have quietly spoken to the girl and discovered what the issues concerning her were. Perhaps have her speak with a child pschologist to determine the source of the anger. Perhaps the 13 “kids on the list” had been mean to her..had hurt her pride.
Sadly Columbine scared us all. It is the times.
I am sorry to completely think you are looney TW.
”Quite simply if the list came to light a week after the ’supposedly’ innocent girl had gone and poisened the persons on the list, the administrators would now really face an onslaught of criticism.”
She is not innocent of having made a list. She, in fact, made a list. Now the question is, what is an APPROPRIATE punishment for having made a list (then tore it up) ?
How much harm to a child’s future does a hypothetical ‘onslaught of criticism’ cause? And comparatively, how much harm to a child’s future does time out of school and criminal charges cause?
Also TW, I see so many instances of this sort of tyranny inflicted upon schoolchildren on a daily basis via this site to want to give these administrators the benefit of the doubt.
Sadly ZeroIntelligence scared us all. It is the times.
“Quite simply if the list came to light a week after the “supposedly” innocent girl had gone and poisened the persons on the list, the administrators would now really face an onslaught of criticism.”
Ah yes, the “I’ll get sued if I don’t over-react” syndrome. Not really though. Schools should perform some simple “threat assessments” tests, whenever they encounter an angry or distraught student. After the assessment, if they determine the student isn’t really a danger, and hasn’t done anything criminal, then just relax. The FBI has recommended, and documented, a thorough threat assessment process for schools. Some schools do follow their recommendations, employing psychologists and other professionals to weigh a student’s “problems”.
I think this is a very important process to implement, as it protects schools from liability, but at the same time protects students from being criminalized. We need to judge whether students *pose* a threat, even if their words aren’t actually a true, criminal, threat. After all, just saying something in anger, especially from a young kid, is a common occurance — who hasn’t wished someone else dead? But, when it comes to criminalize this, the courts have set a very high threshold on what constitutes a threat, vs. merely angry words, momentary lapse of judgement, flippant remark, or satirical comment.
Schools administrators, on the other hand, it seems, don’t have an appreciation of the law, especially in assessing a student’s intentionality. To them, from the stories I’ve heard (and experienced), any angry words spoken by a student constitutes a criminal threat!
Out of curiosity, what the heck is the counselor’s office for? To help keep the “good” kids in line but do nothing about the ones who actually may need some help?
5 day suspension, maybe.
Criminal charges? No.
A nice chat with the counselor and maybe with the parents later? YES.
A real crime:
Girl dies in school stabbing
Victim was 7; police have no suspects
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/today/frontpage/stories/fr012805s1.shtml
the same day one mile away:
Camera’s keep an eye on school
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/today/education/stories/ed012805s1.shtml
I wonder if the drain on police to catch kids in the act of puberty isn’t removing them from the public.
Security cameras have been stationed throughout the buildings in hallways and cafeterias. Nine cameras were installed at Poughkeepsie Middle last month and nine this month at Poughkeepsie High at a cost of almost $30,000.
It’s an effort to improve safety at the two buildings. All administrators in the district are able to watch camera activity from their computers.
The district has also taken other action. It has worked with police to step up patrols and expand the hours of security staffers, Watson said.
Imagine the cost of dealing with these kinds of pubescent outburst here:
http://www.fourwindshospital.com/overview/overview.html
I know parents who do just that. Maybe that’s what you have to do if the kids are so medicated you aren’t relying on intimate family bonds to rear children. Maybe it will become the expected behavior of parents to provide intensive therapy any time a child is disobedient. It’s expensive, most people can’t afford it, and it drains social resources from kids who really need it. While wealthy communities may be able to cater to a society that demands personal aids to escort children through the halls, real parents send them to their room.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28herbert.html?hp
It’s a city of some eight million people that dangerously shortchanges its Fire Department because money is hard to come by. It’s a city that has been unable, due to budget constraints, to reach contract agreements with crucial city employees, including firefighters, police officers and teachers.
In short, it’s tapped out. Over the past couple of years the city has relied more and more on corporations, wealthy individuals and foundations to pay for municipal services and functions that the city can no longer afford to provide.
The point here is that neither the city nor the state has a dime to spare. Subway lines are falling apart because 19th-century signal systems have been neither upgraded nor protected. Plans for critically needed school construction are being deferred. After-school programs, which are literally lifelines for many youngsters, have to be shut down because they are not “affordable.”
Property taxes increase at the same rate as values, usually about a year behind, when property is reassessed. One wonders, with property values skyrocketing far faster than inflation population, how this city could possibly have budget shortfalls. No city, absent corruption and totally profligate spending, should have budget problems in this climate.
They certainly made a joke of homeland security. If a homeless person can accidently disable the subway system for months imagine the effort that’s put into non-essential resource.
I posted too soon. This is the city that produced this headline right after winning recognition in a national science competition.
New York Plans Test to Affirm Fitness for Jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/education/29regents.html?oref=login
Under mounting pressure from business and labor groups, New York is expected to become the first state in the nation to issue a “work readiness” credential to high school students who pass a voluntary test measuring their ability to succeed in entry-level jobs, state officials say.
So let me get this straight. A bunch of teachers went through a garbage can. Check. They reassembled a note of a list of people. Check. They likely wasted hours on a garbage can and a note that didn’t mean anything. A big check.
Don’t these people have something better to do? Ya know like “teach” or is this foriegnto them?