public schools gone wild (again)

[11B101ABN]

Holy crap they handcuffed the kid? That is such bullshit! What cop would do that?

This would usually depend on the size of the child, thier apparent emotional stability, nature of the offense, and several other things, but if the criteria were met, they get cuffed.

[ST911]

Before condemning or defending anyone in the case, I'd like more info than is contained in the media report. Such as the social, psych, and disciplinary history of the kid and family. Also, all the bits and pieces that don't make it into police reports or school docs but are big parts of how decisions are made.

I've seen some seriously disturbed kids over the years. Some of them were pretty clean on paper, and would seem like innocent victims of schools and cops run amok if all you saw about them was media reports like the above.

As for the arrest... The state can elect to be the victim here, and involvement of the district is not required if the elements of the offenses charged can be met. The custodial arrest, handcuffing and detention of the child, including denial of parental access pending appearance, is not unlawful. Litigation is unlikely to be successful.

Good idea? Necessary? Excessive? Further info required.

It smells, though.

[500grains]

I do not see how the elements of 'interfering with teachers or staff of a school' would be met, since the kid drew the pic for himself and was supposedly throwing it away when the teacher caught a look at it.

Anyway, I guess we can now all expect stupid crap on our...

[ST911]

I do not see how the elements of 'interfering with teachers or staff of a school' would be met, since the kid drew the pic for himself and was supposedly throwing it away when the teacher caught a look at it.

It depends on the specific statute charged, construction of the statute, and case law generated since. Normally, the requirements are pretty loose and easy to make.

Any of our CO contingent have the language?

[rickrock305]

Unfortunately this seems like one of those situations where the school is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they didn't report it at all and just let it go and then the kid came to school and hurt somebody, everybody would be screaming about the school not doing anything. The Columbine kids did similar crap with their diaries and stuff, and everyone was saying people should have seen the signs.


It should not be ignored but at the same time I think filing criminal charges is going way too far.

[bkb0000]

Unfortunately this seems like one of those situations where the school is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they didn't report it at all and just let it go and then the kid came to school and hurt somebody, everybody would be screaming about the school not doing anything. The Columbine kids did similar crap with their diaries and stuff, and everyone was saying people should have seen the signs.


It should not be ignored but at the same time I think filing criminal charges is going way too far.

out of the thousands upon thousands of kids that scribble out morbid shit on a piece of paper, how many are going to someday shoot the place up? should be suspend/put in counselling/prosecute/**** up the life of these thousands upon thousands that scribble out something morbid on a piece of paper, for sake of the statistical-one that might be a problem, someday?

the problem is that we have millions of people who get their news from a small handful of sources who all report on the same infinitesimally small number of problems in our society. the solution is to look at the actual statistics with these things- and the statistics show that schools today are actually substantially safer, kinder, and less violent places overall than they were during our parents' generation.

mass shootings are a new thing- but they're literally one-in-many-millions situations.... YOU CANT ADDRESS THAT! it's like trying to prevent the lottery from being won. but once again, we chose ignorant fear over reason. we'd rather everyone suffer, so we can feel like we're doing something.

[BrianS]

18-9-109. Interference with staff, faculty, or students of educational institutions.

(1) No person shall, on or near the premises or facilities of any educational institution, willfully deny to students, school officials, employees, and invitees:
(a) Lawful freedom of movement on the premises;
(b) Lawful use of the property or facilities of the institution;
(c) The right of lawful ingress and egress to the institution's physical facilities.
(2) No person shall, on the premises of any educational institution or at or in any building or other facility being used by any educational institution, willfully impede the staff or faculty of such institution in the lawful performance of their duties or willfully impede a student of the institution in the lawful pursuit of his educational activities through the use of restraint, abduction, coercion, or intimidation or when force and violence are present or threatened.
(3) No person shall willfully refuse or fail to leave the property of or any building or other facility used by any educational institution upon being requested to do so by the chief administrative officer, his designee charged with maintaining order on the school premises and in its facilities, or a dean of such educational institution, if such person is committing, threatens to commit, or incites others to commit any act which would disrupt, impair, interfere with, or obstruct the lawful missions, processes, procedures, or functions of the institution.
(4) It shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant was exercising his right to lawful assembly and peaceful and orderly petition for the redress of grievances, including any labor dispute between an educational institution and its employees, any contractor or subcontractor, or any employee thereof.
(5) Any person who violates any of the provisions of this section, except subsection (6) of this section, commits a class 3 misdemeanor.
(6)(a) A person shall not knowingly make or convey to another person a credible threat to cause death or to cause bodily injury with a deadly weapon against:
(I) A person the actor knows or believes to be a student, school official, or employee of an educational institution; or
(II) An invitee who is on the premises of an educational institution.
(b) For purposes of this subsection (6), "credible threat" means a threat or physical action that would cause a reasonable person to be in fear of bodily injury with a deadly weapon or death.
(c) A person who violates this subsection (6) commits a class 1 misdemeanor.

Formatting got a little weird, and added a bunch of spaces in the cut and paste. I fixed it as best I could.

To me it doesn't look like this law would apply to a kid sent to the principal's office for making a drawing. If it did it would be the subsection 6 and they would be claiming the drawing constituted a "credible threat" which is not what he was charged with (probably because it would be hard to find a judge who would believe it was a credible threat at trial, I am assuming CO does not give juvenile offenders jury rights as many jurisdictions do not).

Seems like another example of stretching a statute intended to deal with something else (protestors blocking access to a school or somebody making credible threats) and applying it to a situation for which it was not intended (kid draws stick figures to vent his frustration on advice of his therapist and some wuss freaks out over it). This kind of thing is dangerous and destructive to liberty.

[Honu]

to me 11 years old ? in this situation ?

you bring in the parents show them and talk to them say you cant have that perceived threat as I am sure they would understand in a public school and if we have another episode like this you might need to think about private school or homeschool as we cant take the responsibility with other students in todays climate
so this is your warning

[bkb0000]

to me 11 years old ? in this situation ?

you bring in the parents show them and talk to them say you cant have that perceived threat as I am sure they would understand in a public school and if we have another episode like this you might need to think about private school or homeschool as we cant take the responsibility with other students in todays climate
so this is your warning

agreed. it sure as shit shouldn't involve police or the media. what the hell is wrong with people?

[500grains]

Looks like they could not figure out what to charge the kid with so they pulled something out of the air. Maybe the school principle was screaming, "It must be illegal! You figure out what to charge him with."