Crap like this *really* annoys me...

[acroyear]

Kid gets arrested for Civil War Reenactment stuff (well, including the musket) in his car in the high school parking lot...

It was in the trunk, never pulled out, simply there because he didn't clean his car out after an event, and instead of a warning or a discussion (or the OBVIOUS fact that it was part of a costume), he's cuffed and dragged off campus to the police station.

I so hope there's a serious lawsuit out of this one, because its yet another example of how zero-tolerance is destroying the schools its trying to protect...

Comments

Re: Devils advocate...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

there's deterence, then there's justice.

how can kids EVER learn that the system is there to protect them and they're told that the constitution and the practice of law is idealized so much that "it is better to have a criminal go free than to jail an innocent man", when the only "justice" they see in schools is zero-tolerance, retribution-based, absolute rule worse than anything soloman could have come up with...

there's safety, then there's education. if for the sake of safety, the "education" they get on how the world works is distorted, they will carry that distortion with them into adulthood.

kids *innocent* of crimes are being punished. how much of faith in the american system is that going to instill? how much bitterness and hatred for authority, hatred for teachers and administrators, hatred for "the system" for putting absolutes above the truth.

"examples" like this BREED resentment and hatred, only it breeds it in those that never carry it, and the hatred is not against the peers, its against the sense of justice that this country is supposed to represent.

i speak from experience. i was once punished (3 licks, on the spot, no recourse, no chance to explain what really happened, not that i would have been believed anyways) for a crime I didn't do, only it didn't look that way to the teacher who only saw things in absolutes.

and my grade in that teachers' class dropped from a b+ to a d because i refused to give her any respect from that moment on. i held that much resentment for the injustice that i simply lost faith in her.

Re: Devils advocate...

[selkiesiren.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking (and unlike some of the other examples given later on here, like a trophy baseball bat), this child *did* have a working weapon. Black powder or no, it was still a working firearm. There's paranoia (a trophy, and I do hope in *that* case that someone sued), and then there's a real infraction (usable firearm).

I'm truly sorry you went through what you went through, but (unlike you) I don't think this child *was* truly innocent of the thing of which he was accused. He may have been innocent of intent, but that is not the same thing as being innocent of the crime. The law is not always about intent. Sometimes, it's about a particular action or inaction, regardless of intent. If, as a for instance, you said outloud and in the presence of an officer of the law, that you'd like to kill the President, but had no real intentions to do so, you would still be locked up for the threat. The threat itself is a crime...not just the intent, and not just having actually attempted to carry out the intent (though both of these will get you locked up as well). In this case, the law is, simply...*no* weapons on school property. This child broke that law. That is not the same thing as his being a wanton criminal, but there needs to be enforcement of laws like this for the safety of all.

I do feel remorse that the child went through this. No, I don't think it was a good thing for him. Yes, I wish it had not happened. But, in the final analysis, the child unwittingly transgressed a serious law. I hope his parents are wise enough to give him the emotional support he may need in order to move past this with as little impact as possible. "Resentment" need not be the end result for him. Understanding of the law, and greater respect for it are also potential, if people do their jobs correctly.