12-Year-Old Sikh Boy Arrested In Texas After Bringing a Power Bag To School (salon.com) 954
AaronW writes: A 12-year-old Sikh boy in Dallas, Texas was accused by another student of bringing a bomb to school. Apparently he had a powerbag; a backpack with a built-in phone charger. Rather than send him to the principal's office or ask for an explanation, the teacher instead called the police, who promptly arrested him and threw him into a juvenile detention center for three days. The school promptly suspended Armaan, and the police released him after three days but required that he wear an ankle bracelet.
Verifiable details are scant, for this case — probably because the whole thing seems to revolve around some 12-year-old kids talking to each other. Armaan's story is that another student said his bag looked like it had a bomb in it, and that he would report it. Believing it to be a joke, Armaan laughed. The police say he "admitted" to joking about a bomb, and they insist their actions were justified. A school district spokesman says the family was notified, but the parents say they had to dial 911 to find somebody who could tell them where their son was being held.
Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty sick.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
No; it's kidnapping. A 12 year old with a charger is clearly outside their official roles so whatever immunity the people involved here have from their jobs should be ignored. Everybody involved in locking him away should be charged with kidnapping or conspiracy. Put them down for 10 years minimum. Only when this happens regularly, reliably and visibly to many police officers and judges will these people begin to do their jobs and actually investigate whether there was a real threat or not.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the anarchists, wait, communists, no, terrorists!
(Here's hoping a bunch of people lose their homes in civil suits)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, possibly it was within their roles if they believed it was really a bomb or there was a bomb threat. It is legal to detain juveniles. However, there is no right for police to lock up a minor without notifying the parents. Doesn't matter if the school claims they were going to notify the parents, because the school failed to provide all the necessary information.
However the details in the story are extremely vague and the reports contradict each other. So maybe they were notified. Even if they wer
Re: Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
I know, right? A charge that serious is liable to wind up on his permanent record.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
The story is that he was making a bomb threat, not that there was a bomb. You can make a bomb threat while having only a box of cheerios in your backpack and it's still a bomb threat. The debate between the family and the school/police was whether there really was a bomb threat, a joke of a bomb threat, or a misunderstanding.
Then the next question, do you hold a 12 year old for this without notifying and having parents or guardians notified and present? And the notification must be from the police and not the school, the phone call should be from the police to the parents and not from the parents to the police. And not an excuse "we tried to contact them" without follow through.
And given that it's a 12 year old why treat such a person as an adult? That's absurd. This is more of the zero-tolerance nonsense that's turning schools into daytime detention centers. Let he who is without childhood mistakes cast the first stone.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hm, I thought that they arrest the person under charges of calling in the fake bomb threat, like with "clock boy". They got the wrong kid! Should have arrested the racist who called in a fake bomb threat. And if they think the product Armaan purchased is threateningly bomb-like, they should arrest all the stores that sell it and the manufacturers. I mean, allowing the open manufacture and sale of fake bomb threat backpacks, what is the world coming to.
Or they could examine the perfectly harmless object owned by the "scary foreigner 12 year old" then tell the people involved in this to grow up.
Re: (Score:3)
You're assuming that someone involved in this whole farce actually was a grownup.
Re: (Score:3)
Lawyer up, and be nice to the county, e.g. sue the school board and the police only for $100 million each.
The stupid officials will only learn to handle things like this with common sense after a number of crippling court rulings.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can imagine something like:
In the past, kid receives racist taunts. Makes a complaint. Investigation favors those making the taunts - they were clearly joking. Kid told to lighten up and develop social skills.
Kid gets taunted about having a bomb. Decides to lighten up and joke along. Gets sent to juvenile detention for joking about security matters.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that when the officers of the law start arresting the youth because they are afraid of terrorists attack, a terrorist attack is no longer necessary. The terrorists have won.
Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Take them for all the money that can be had. False arrest charges would be nice too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How do you get that from 'The police say he "admitted" to joking about a bomb'?
Re: (Score:3)
But saying "it's a joke" doesn't make things go away. We don't know what the kid said. We're not even at this point entirely sure what the police said because multiple reports are saying slightly different things (one said he admitted to a bomb threat, but no details of the background or how scared he was or if there was pressure put on him to confess). Given that there is a court date then this is not just a case of locking him up to put the scare in him, someone in the police department took it serious
Re: Sue em. (Score:4, Insightful)
He was 12, talking to another 12 year old, thinking it was a joke between them.
The cops couldn't check the "bomb" begot arresting him and holding him for three days? A 12 year old? Really?
What an asinine comment.
Re: Sue em. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sue em. (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is was the statement credible. Ie. Was it.
{solemn voice}"Yes. I have a bomb."
Or was it:
{Laughter}"Yeah, dude. I totalllly have a bomb in there. Of course I do."
Considering that the TSA considers the second to be a reason to deny you air travel, even though no court in the world would consider it a credible admission of such, we have no way of knowing which of these two scenarios played out in the principal's office.
Re:Sue em. (Score:4, Funny)
{Laughter}"Yeah, dude. I totalllly have a bomb in there. Of course I do."
At which point, the perfect finisher would have been to open the pack and pull out the DVD release of something like Night Patrol, or Arthur II, or Highlander II, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
False arrest? The kid lied and said it was a bomb. No false anything there except for a bomb threat.
It was a false bomb accusation. Not a false bomb threat.
Re:Sue em. (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean in the sense that the school and the police falsely claimed it to be a bomb threat in order to attempt to justify their blatant criminal violation of the kid's civil rights?
Yep, I can agree with that.
Re:Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
False arrest? The kid lied and said it was a bomb. No false anything there except for a bomb threat.
They questioned a minor, presumably after searching him, without his parents there?
Who knows what they told him to get him to confess; because the police never lie and the never misrepresent--oh wait.
There are some people who need to be wearing ankle bracelets after this; unfortunately they're still wearing uniforms and carrying guns.
Re: (Score:3)
how many bomb threats from adults would you believe? It's rather stupid to think anyone has a bomb, just because he's telling you. If he had, he would probably not be telling and without any source where he could have got some, its not credible anyway.
Re:Sue em. (Score:4, Funny)
The south has a long way to go before they'll be ready to join us in the 21st century.
I'd be happy if they just started acting like it was the 20th century...
Re:Sue em. (Score:4, Interesting)
Texas managed to rebel twice against their own country. The first time was very duplicitous - move in a lot of gringos, complain that they're not being treated fairly because of their race, they held illegally held slaves against Mexican law, then start a shooting war for independence (they did ask for help from the US who declined). Then they eventually end up in the union where they are grateful for being allowed to finally keep slaves without government interference. For 16 years anyway until they seceded with the confederate states for the sole reason of being allowed to continue the institution of slavery.
So racist from their very beginnings, and the two rebellions certainly make Texas a very untrustworthy state. Even though 50 years ago a Texas born president forced them to become civilizied and abandon their institutionalized racism, it does not mean they've stopped being racist.
Re:Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
At the age of 12 he would be a couple of years too young to wear a turban or carry a ceremonial blade. Sikh boys of that age would, however, have long hair tied up in a bun and covered by a head cloth. So those things would have fed the rampant xenophobia of the Texans involved. The kid was some kind of long haired hippy towel head.
The Sikh way is highly tolerant of other religions and beliefs, and profoundly pacifist. These factors along with his appearance quite likely made him an outcast in his peer group, and teachers and school administrators may well have recognized him as some kind of weirdly disruptive influence.
I do not understand why the police held him for three days. What possible justification could there be for that? There is a gross systemic failure there.
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
A community that supports that behavior should expect higher rates.
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps that community will fire the morons they hired for cops, and find cops that aren't simpering halfwits.
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Sue em. (Score:4, Interesting)
I did not quite realize the police are obligated to arrest someone just because someone else say so.
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Initially arresting the child because of a school zero tolerance policy might not be the police's fault. Holding a child for 3 days and requiring him to wear an ankle bracelet after knowing he had a backpack with a phone charger is most definitely the police's fault.
Re: (Score:3)
agreed. better to blow somebody away when they are threatening you /nosnark
I hate this line of reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, wouldn't "them" in this case be the local government which means the local community, i.e. people who are paying taxes in that town? Best case the police department is insured and the insurance company would pay any settlement and then just jack up insurance rates on the rest of their customers to make the money back. Yeah, good idea.
I really hate this type of reply.
It attempts to sway the reader into thinking that responsibility and/or justice will be expensive. It tries to dissuade the reader from commonsense actions which would tend to prevent future transgressions.
Don't fine the company - they'll only jack up their prices and it's the customers who would pay. Don't sue the government, they'll just jack up the taxes and the people will pay.
This might cost the taxpayers in one or two instances, but it would have a chilling effect on other abuses in other districts. It's an overall gain for the taxpayers everywhere.
We don't have to sit outraged and powerless while these sorts of abuses happen. One or two groups of taxpayers can take the hit and we will all benefit. They will benefit later when we take the hit for other types of abuse.
Let's work together to stop this nonsense.
Including, saying that commonsense punishments are futile.
Re: Sue em. (Score:5, Informative)
Unreasonable false arrest and detention I believe is covered by that.
John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking guns away from honest citizens helps them how? You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that somebody desiring to kill others would somehow obey gun laws. Plus, the laws that are always proposed after a shooting would, in general, have done nothing to stop the incident that actually caused the law to be proposed.
You have also failed to show how your comment is relevant to this story about a Sikh boy (a religion, I might add, that is not generally known to kill people).
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that somebody desiring to kill others would somehow obey gun laws.
Somehow that person always manages to get ahold of several guns. As long as that keeps happening you get to hear this over and over again until you come up with a better solution.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the solution is to NOT disarm the victims? Nobody seems to commit mass murders at police stations or NRA headquarters.
A mass shooter passed a background check, so we need universal background checks. Yeah, makes sense to me.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
Too bad actual FACTS don't back you up.
Case in point -- about two miles from my house. An armed honest person stopped a potential mass murderer. So, yeah, try to tell me that what happened in my neighborhood did not actually happen. When given the choice of believing you or the truth, I know which one I will go with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And ... more examples.
http://concealednation.org/201... [concealednation.org]
Maybe just just don't know about it because the media does not want to report it.
From Wikipedia (with links to source studies):
So, depending upon how you define it, good guys use guns to prevent crime between 55,000 to 4,700,000 times per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Go peddle your lies elsewhere.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
5 out of hundreds of mass shootings over the years? The solution isn't adequate, to say the least.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Interesting)
This is your big citation:
Note found right at the top of that Wikipedia pate
It happens that the site the Wikipedia entry was copy/pasted from, is John Lott's website. John Lott is a discredited "gun researcher and advocate".
http://www.armedwithreason.com... [armedwithreason.com]
Fact is, if you own a gun (and I do), you're about 15 times more likely to hurt yourself or a family member than you are to defend yourself or stop a crime. If you live in Florida, Texas or Georgia, that goes up to about 40 times more likely.
Re:John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
...then why does the political left insist that the handful of incidents involving terrorists is grounds to deny law abiding people constitutionally protected rights?
Because throwing more guns into the mix hasn't solved the problem. Still waiting for a better answer.
Re:John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Because throwing more guns into the mix hasn't solved the problem.
What do you mean? Millions more people own guns now than they did 30 years ago, and violence crimes of all kinds, including those involving guns, have been going steadily down, and are down 46% since the 1990's. So, more honest people own legal guns, and we have much, much less violent crime.
Still waiting for a better answer.
Better answer to what? The problem in just a handful of urban areas where almost all of the non-suicide gun deaths occur? That is a problem. Those are areas with the most draconian gun laws, but they still seem to have a problem. Why? Because they have a rampant violent gang crime problem in those small parts of those four cities. Other areas have much high rates of gun ownership, and only a tiny fraction of that sort of violence. Trying to figure out what to do with those specific urban areas? Ask the liberals who have run the city councils and executive offices in those cities for the last several decades straight. Maybe they have some insight into why their approach to inner-city crime and gang activity doesn't work as well as it does everywhere else. Take away the crime in those four spots, and the US's murder rate is 17th down the list, well behind other countries that have far, far stricter gun laws.
You want a "better answer?" Address the culture problems in that handful of urban areas, and ask your favorite media outlets to report this stuff in some sort of honest context.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean? Millions more people own guns now than they did 30 years ago, and violence crimes of all kinds, including those involving guns, have been going steadily down, and are down 46% since the 1990's. So, more honest people own legal guns, and we have much, much less violent crime.
The USA's gun death rate is far far far higher than places like Canada, France, UK, etc.
Those are areas with the most draconian gun laws, but they still seem to have a problem. Why? Because they have a rampant violent gang crime problem in those small parts of those four cities.
And how would that have stopped last week's shooting?
You want a "better answer?" Address the culture problems in that handful of urban areas, and ask your favorite media outlets to report this stuff in some sort of honest context.
In other words: "Nah that's your problem, not mine, so long as I can keep my guns."
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
The USA's gun death rate is far far far higher than places like Canada, France, UK, etc.
Because (1) more of their suicides use other methods, and (2) four urban gang violence hotspots account for the overwhelming majority of the rest of it. Something you'd really like to avoid discussing, it seems.
And how would that have stopped last week's shooting?
How would what have stopped it? Having less gang violence? Right: murderous jihaddis really don't care about "normal" crimes or the laws that are generally aimed at such situations. We should really consider ourselves lucky that the two jihaddis that attacked in California didn't opt for the Boston method. If they'd tossed one cheap backpack pressure cooker bomb into that same room, they'd have killed WAY more people. Obviously they had an appreciation for explosives, but didn't have the time to put them to work as planned. What sort of pre-emptive laws are you really anticipating that would stop people like that from killing if they want to?
In other words: "Nah that's your problem, not mine, so long as I can keep my guns."
We don't have Chicago's murder problem where I live. That problem is highly localized. So yes, it actually IS their problem. Or are you saying that we should have the federal government take over law enforcement in that liberal paradise, and that making that city's highly concentrated gang murder problem a federal responsibility would make it go away?
Re: (Score:3)
You know what happens when a mass shooting is stopped by a "good guy with a gun"? It's not a mass shooting! It's just one guy using a firearm in self defense to stop another guy with a gun. That's hardly newsworthy, unless there's something colorful about the incident (like may favorite: a Houston Justice of the Peace who shot a mugger on the stars of the courthouse - OK, not a mass shooting stopped, but still humorous). Sometimes, there's not even a shooting if the confrontation happens before the woul
Re: (Score:3)
You know what happens when a mass shooting is stopped by a "good guy with a gun"? It's not a mass shooting! It's just one guy using a firearm in self defense to stop another guy with a gun. That's hardly newsworthy,...
Heh. So, just to be clear, if somebody had shot the two people in California last week before they killed anybody else, and they found that cache of weapons etc, that wouldn't have made news? Be serious.
It's no coincidence that the vast majority of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones!
It's also not a coincidence that most gun-free zones are in places where they're likely to happen. Oh and a couple of more things: You're not allowed weapons in most places. Most of these killings are at places the shooter(s) have ties to. No, the gun-free zone is not a shooter magnet.
Re: (Score:3)
We're talking about mass-shootings. Less than 15% are stopped by "Good guys with guns."
Perhaps that's because the majority of such incidents take place where the law prohibits the good guys from having guns?
Re: (Score:3)
Suddenly all these gun control laws are really effective now. Anyway, no, the stats don't support it. In fact the recent shooting in Oregon really hammered that home.
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
In the netherlands, 1.9% have guns. Maybe you're confusing it with switzerland, where its 27.2%
Re: (Score:3)
He's an American--you expect him to know geography?
Re: (Score:3)
A firearm for home defence is not accepted, that is what the police are for in a properly managed society,
No. Even the police admit that they cannot be everywhere to defend everyone against everything all the time. But you may mean a "properly managed society" in which all the people are "properly managed", yes?
Hunting does not require an assault rifle,
Good thing there aren't many assault rifles being sold, huh?
But here we're back at the typical "you don't need" argument, which is pretty meaningless. If we based our "properly managed society" on what I think you need, I'm sure we'd all be happy citizens being happy, productive consumers and never have
Re: John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but with appropriate enforcement, the number and availability of guns, legal or otherwise, can be driven down to numbers such that gun crime is negligible. See for example: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan.
There's no magic to it on their part, just a lack of political will on our part. All we need is for politicians to grow a pair and tell the NRA to go fuck itself.
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
They don't get to carry them around on base because the army understands that having everyone carry guns around is a recipe for more shootings, not less.
Re:John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest citizens are still mostly badly trained dumbasses. I am more afraid of accidentally being shot by some redneck who drank too much and got in an argument than I am from being blown up by ISIS. The statistics bear this out. Do you live your life by real numbers or just gut feelings?
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
You are probably in more danger of being shot by a black. Stats prove that.
No, they don't [fbi.gov]
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
You are probably in more danger of being shot by a black. Stats prove that.
No, they don't [fbi.gov]
On the other hand, perhaps you are, if you're also black. [washingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:3)
You're right. I should have looked more closely.
Re:John Oliver (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking guns away from honest citizens helps them how?
Same way it does in Japan, Australia and pretty much every other first world nation that's not the USA: It reduces the number of guns in circulation, making it less likely you (or your little kids) will be shot.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Insightful)
So, getting shot to death somehow makes you MORE dead than somebody stabbed to death? Curios. Please explain the logic behind this. Isn't the real reason to ban guns to reduce the overall homicide rate? If so, banning guns FAILS at this.
Case in point, Australia. They cracked down on guns HEAVILY. Result? The homicide rate was reduced by about as much as it was in the US. Overall violent crime, however, has dropped a lot in the US, while it has NOT done that in Australia. Some years the violent crime rate was up, some years it was down, but the US has seen a distinct downward trend.
Another point for you in Australia, which banned lots of guns around 1996:
In 1995, guns were used in 18.38% of homicides.
In 2012, guns were used in 17.5% of homicides.
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool... [aic.gov.au]
Yea, less than ONE PERCENT of change. Wow, what a difference.
Now, let's look at Japan, where they are NOT culturally diverse, respect for the law is a lot higher, the society stresses conforming, and suspects do not have the same legal protections that we do here. They also have no guns, and a MUCH higher suicide rate. I am not to dishonest as to ignore the other differences and say that if they had guns, that the suicide rate would drop to US levels. Apparently, you are not so honest and just like to look at the one difference that matters to you and are free to ignore the other differences.
Re:Screw your gun rights (Score:4, Insightful)
The odds are much higher that you will use that weapon against your own family than that you will ever use it in any way that actually protects them from harm.
My dad was a reserve and was called up for both World War II and Korea. He killed people in Germany, and had a Purple Heart and a panel of decorations. He brought home a Luger which he'd taken off of some German. He destroyed the firing pin, because he knew that his family would be safer without an operating weapon in the home.
Guns are pretty reliable. Your brain isn't. Everybody has a crazy day in their life. Everyone.
So, I figure that not having guns all around us is better for our freedom overall.
Re: (Score:3)
It is proven that drownings happen a LOT more in houses that have swimming pools, so we need to ban them for the public good.
Sorry, but what I MIGHT do is not a good reason to restrict my rights.
If you do the math, the average male "member" is about 30 time more likely to commit sexual assault than the average gun is to commit murder. Do we need to c
Re: (Score:3)
The odds are much higher that you will use that weapon against your own family than that you will ever use it in any way that actually protects them from harm.
Nice way to include suicides (which are two-thirds of all "gun deaths") in your assertion. The people who trot out that canard consider someone who kills himself to have used the gun "on his family." By that measure, owning a car is crazy because it hugely increases the odds of you and/or your family dying in it.
Your anecdote about your dad suggests that he was a lucid, brave person. Was he really worried that he was going to decide to kill his family? Was he actually worried that only a WWII pistol wou
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Screw your gun rights (Score:4, Informative)
Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homocide in the Home [nejm.org]. They say 2.7 to 1. That's just the first I found with a Google search. And the fatal school shootings list [wikipedia.org] is really obscenely frequent now.
Pardon me for getting exasperated, but I shouldn't really have to tell you to read the news! This stuff is right in front of you.
Re:John Oliver (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. Let's review, harrkev objects to banning all guns because a few might misuse them to commit crimes and points out that someone already determined to break the law isn't going to be stopped by another law.
ragefan apparently has a thinko and seems to claim that harrkev said NOBODY should be restricted from anything because they might disobey the law.
I attempt (apparently too subtly) to cause a rethink by applying the same thinko in reverse (can you call it a thinko if it's on purpose?).
Then you whooshed.
Re: John Oliver (Score:4, Interesting)
Please stop with the silly "we need more gun laws" argument every time someone farts. You're just embarrassing yourselves now. We have enough gun laws. Mine can't leave my house because we have so many silly laws. And contrary to popular leftist, racists beliefs I can prove guns aren't violent. My guns just sit wherever I leave them. If anything, they're lazy.
It's you (Score:3)
Do we need an organized message? (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic problem is that mundanes see any home-made electronic device as a bomb. This is the terminal point of anti-intellectual bias in society, if you can make something, it's assumed that you're out to make something harmful.
Re:Do we need an organized message? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do we need an organized message? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's hard to do when there are people who apparently think everything looks like a bomb. In this case, it was a backpack with a built-in phone charger.
No, not a funky looking home-made cellphone charger, we're talking a regular old commercial product you can order on Amazon.
Re:Do we need an organized message? (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't even homemade, it was a commercial product with a phone charger in it.
Should the lesson be "doing anything remotely suspicious while brown is punishable, and suspicious is what officials want it to be"?
Horrible (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a horrible miscarriage of justice. If we're to accept this story on face value, the failures and stupidity at every level of government is distressingly palpable. How absurd is it that no one at the school or police department performed even the most minimal investigation much less inform the parents. Isn't it outright illegal for police to talk to children to interrogate them without the parents having the option to be present?
Re: (Score:3)
Since he said it to one person he was acquainted with, it would be more like walking into my friend's apartment and declaring "I have a bomb". Come to think of it, I did that once. The result: laughter.
Oh goodie (Score:3, Insightful)
Soon we'll hear accusations that the student's father's sister's cousin's former room mate was also unverifiably be accused of making bomb threats.
Home of the brave? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear America,
Please get a grip on yourselves.
Signed,
The Rest of the World.
Re:Home of the brave? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Clockboy taught us anything it's to suspend judgement about this type of story.
Re: (Score:3)
One thing should be not in doubt so:
Sighs aren't even Muslim.
Towel on the head does not make a terrorist.
Re:Home of the brave? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear rest of the world,
America is a very, very large place with a wide variety of people, culture, geography, and ideologies.
Look at where you are now, draw a two thousand kilometer circle around you, and tell me someone in that circle hasn't done something crazy.
That is all.
Re:Home of the brave? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear rest of the world,
America is a very, very large place with a wide variety of people, culture, geography, and ideologies.
Look at where you are now, draw a two thousand kilometer circle around you, and tell me someone in that circle hasn't done something crazy.
That is all.
You are of course somewhat correct, I was being inflammatory. But I would resist putting this down to "someone crazy". Many people colluded here in this, the teachers that acted together, and the police that continued it. You're talking about quite a few people where none of them went "it's a fucking battery pack, calm down". Add to that that nobody is backing down, what should be happening is an admission that that was a mistaken overreaction, and apology, and this would diffuse. But no, the police are finding absurd things around a laugh to support their actions. And it never seems to happen to someone in the racial majority, it's always someone who is different (but no that's apparently nothing to do with it, again, denials). Everybody denies that there's a problem, and desperately tries to find evidence to support their overreaction.
He provable brought nothing of consequence to school, but was held for 3 days and then made to wear a tracking device. What the fuck.
No sense of humor (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly when dealing with law enforcement you can't make jokes. It is a related issue to the whole "zero tolerance" mindset that has besieged school policy. Being reasonable is no longer a reasonable expectation.
A normal human can be expected to crack a joke when confronted with a bizarre situation, such as a teacher asking a seemingly insane question as to whether your clock, or backpack is a bomb. Using humor to diffuse a tense situation is one of those social skills we pick up as a way to survive being crammed into overcrowded schools with a bunch of numb skull peers. But normal human behavior will get you tazed, pepper sprayed, arrested, or even shot these days.
Similarly we have a lot of cases of folks freezing up while being barked at by armed cops and being shot for not dropping the "weapon" (real or imagined). Normal human behavior for sure, but you die as a result. Trying shield yourself from a rain of blows? To a cop that can be seen as "resisting arrest" and justify a further rain of blows, a choke hold, or a tazing. Using body language like gesticulating with your arms and hands as you try to talk things out with some meat head pointing a gun at you? To a cop that is "acting erratically", maybe even causing him to "fear for his life". Not answering questions per your Miranda rights? "Acting un-cooperatively."
Re:No sense of humor (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly when dealing with law enforcement you can't make jokes.
I don't think anyone is alleging that he made jokes to law enforcement. From what I understand a friend of his joked that his bag looked like it had a bomb in it and and he laughed. Law enforcement was brought in after the fact.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The exact mechanics of this specific incident aren't important. Moof123 is totally correct about the root problem.
The local school boards, the states, the federal government, the unions and the courts mercilessly beat down everyone working in education that made the mistake of exercising ordinary adult judgment. If you think it is bad now, just wait until the kids that we've been raising now, in an environment without adults acting like adults, are in charge.
Someone should start a non profit... (Score:3)
Someone should start a non profit... to manufacture and distribute stickers:
This item is not
a f*cking bomb
Seriously.
Calling the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, the most disturbing thing is that there are (many apparently) teachers out there who call the cops on young children. Racism has always been there, but as far as I remember for anything less than knife-wielding 17 year old gangster students, it would be a school affair, dealt between teachers, parents, principle. Nowadays, they just call the cops on kids...
Re: (Score:3)
For me, the most disturbing thing is that there are (many apparently) teachers out there who call the cops on young children. .
If my son was of school age, I would definitely have him home schooled, or if not - in a charter school. I've seen enough of public schools to know that although you can get an education, in this day and age of "zero tolerance", a child can destroy their entire life, for being a child.
Being arrested should be the very last resort in a school system. Today, it is turning into the first. Home schooling - it's not just for creationists any more.
Re: (Score:3)
Damned straight, some kid in school does anything the instructors don't like, call the cops. The instructors are no longer permitted to do anything else. Let this kid's parents pick up the freight - unless they can prove malfeasance, misconduct or abuse on the part of any of the officials involved. Personally, I think they're letting the
Not Dallas (Score:3)
This was in Arlington, not Dallas. This is like confusing Islip with New York City, Oakland with San Francisco, Yokohoama with Tokyo, or Luton with London.
We've already failed, apparently (Score:4, Insightful)
12 year old Sikh boy (Score:3)
Re:12 year old Sikh boy (Score:4, Insightful)
You need an elementary education in cultures of the world. Sikhism has nothing to do with Islam. It's not even an Abrahamic faith, any more than Hinduism or Buddhism or Shintoism are. Christianity and Juadaism have more commonality with Islam than any of them.
Not that uncommon or newsworthy (Score:3)
Whether it be xenophobes, islamaphobes, or hoplophobes, you have nuts of all type out there willing to persecute people they think they are afraid of.
SIKHS ARE NOT MUSLIMS (Score:5, Informative)
http://sikhism.about.com/od/To... [about.com]
they are a respectable warrior culture with fairly high integrity.
they are not engaged in a jihad against Western culture.
if it's a 'V' you see (turban) it's a Sikh (Score:5, Informative)
Sad to see (Score:3)
what is becoming of America. The regular almost daily parade of articles like this, and listening to the likes of Trump makes me imagine what 1930s Germany must have been like.
Profoundly glad as a Canadian that it does not seem to be that highly contagious.
Re: (Score:3)
At various times, I brought to school a phone-tapping device, a gas mask, and various incomprehensible-to-the-layman scientific devices.
Obviously I would not have fit in with kids like you. But that is no sin.