So, I get up this morning feeling pretty good having slept pretty well. Then there is this story about a 14 year old boy getting arrested and cuffed for taking a homemade clock to school to show his teacher.
What? Seriously? Oh, forgot to tell you that he's Black! And he's one of them Muslims! He got arrested for making a what? A clock you say? Really? Gosh, I've been off my meds since 2008 and have been doing pretty well ...
I'll just sit here quietly, promise. If someone is worried about me, I promise to behave. If you tell me that this was all a hallucination, I promise to go right to the Doctor and get more prescription dope so I no longer go to la la land.
Nope, I do not think I am Jesus today. That was yesterday.
Comments
At this point...
It seems that showing intelligence in this society is a crime.
When we have an authority that trains their subordinates to be both paranoid of everyone, and not to critically think. As such, there is going to be problems.
If the kid's parents get a good lawyer, that kid will be fine, and have plenty of money afterward. Also, the sooner one learns not to trust authority, the better their long term odd of survival.
Good news.
Found the follow up article: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall...
Police are not charging the kid with anything.
while i think they way over reacted
if you saw the picture of the clock (he built it inside a silver attache case) i can see someone who is paranoid, especially with his name and ethnic origins, getting in a fluster. his Engineering teacher even warned him, in a way, not to show it to other teachers, so i think he saw the possible outcome. I do NOT agree with what happened, calling in someone to look at it, sure. arresting, fingerprinting him etc? no that was too far, even though they didnt charge him, he now has a record of being arrested, and his fingerprints are on file.
the stupidest part i read was the the police were unsatisfied with his answers, why did he make the clock, why bring it to school, etc. i think he already said that, duh.
Teresa L.
My electronics forum
is discussing this in depth. It is funny, because this is exactly the crowd that would have done something similar (and in many cases, still do). The authorities are not getting much slack cut from us. I live in the area, the metroplex to be exact, and I am hoping they come away with more egg on their faces yet to come. This young man probably has a nice cash settlement in his future.
Sometimes I despair of where I live. Like the transwoman who was murdered and the guy who did it got 2 years probation, It was manslaughter, almost an accident, but still. That too was around here in the metroplex.
Words Fail Me
“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” he said. “Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution.”
So start here.
https://youtu.be/j8INrv5dgNI
'Err on the side of caution'. You fucking hypocrite.
Great post, Gwen. Thanks.
Schools have been over reacting for years.
Back in 2001 before September 11, I brought part of a school assigned scince experiment to school, I had to weigh some dowel rods that I had painted for the theme of the Mobile. It was a military theme. The I was caring the rods in a paper sack to the physics class room to get there accurate weight so I could properly stage all the weighed objects and the hanging points so everything would be in perfect balance. One of the teachers saw the rods sticking out of the paper bag and ran and got the campus police officer because she claimed I had brought gun barrels to the school. The office walked up asked what was in the bag I told him showed him and he simply walked away saying under his breath something about people over reacting to nothing. This of course was after the well publisized events of the columbine high school shootings. They have been over reacting for years sadly it has only gotten worse. I mean any idiot with a lick of electronics sense could have looked at it and known that was not a bomb. It is a home made electronic clock, ok! but alas in this day and age the over reactions will probably only get worse.
"Cortana is watching you!"
Hmmm...
I tend not to read the news because these kinds of stories tend to bring back memories I'd rather leave in the past. I attended a junior high school at an inner city location. My family was living in government housing at the time. I remember the metal detector at the entrances and the cops who sat attending. Almost all the kids had to pass through the detector. A few didn't. They were... connected?
The standing 'joke' around school was: 'What do you call a kid without a weapon? The victim!' I spent more time trying to avoid situations than attending classes. I wasn't very successful at all. Little did I know that one of those connected kids would become my salvation. But by then it was too late. I'd had enough so I left school and home as well. I was fourteen at the time.
My first thought about the article was...how many kids with actual weapons did they 'accidently' miss? This probably should have been a blog but hey...
Da Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrat