We have been discussing the steady stream of absurd actions taken by school officials under “zero tolerance” policies. For a prior column, click here. The Philadelphia school district is adding its name to this ignoble list after standing by the decision to not only scold but to search a 5th grade student after Melody Valentin was found in possession of a paper gun.
The district is actually commending the actions of officials in searching Valentin, saying that she told classmates that she had a handgun. The family and girl deny she ever said that she had a handgun. Instead, she said that she realized that she had the cutout gun and put it on the desk. Her grandfather had given it to her the previous day. It was a classmate who saw the paper cutout and told a teacher.
The paper gun above does not exactly create a reasonable suspicion that a fully loaded block is concealed in the girl’s backpack. However, she is fortunate not to have been suspended or expelled. Even a finger gun is enough of an arsenal to lead to such discipline judging from past cases.
Source: Fox
A while back I remember reading of a kid that was either suspended or expelled from school for giving another kid a Tic-Tac. Reason? The candy LOOKED like a pill.
What was the worst thing that could have happened with this, a paper cut? The gulag lives on in this school.
pretty lame paper gun for a fifth grader. fire the arts and crafts teacher.
Pete:
Yep, pretty lame. If that passes for a gun it would be advisable to tell your children not to carry cutouts of the states of Oklahoma or Nebraska either.
Darren:
Or Florida, either–they could get expelled for pornography.
Fear based intelligence.
Yep. People who made paper guns in my high school were suspended for having “look alike weapons”. Yeah, because paper guns look JUST LIKE real guns!
An L-shaped piece of paper is a “paper gun”?
Would an intact sheet of copy paper, being longer in one dimension than the other, be properly interpreted as a rifle?
Or does it more closely resemble – oh, boy, it does! – the shape of a Claymore anti-personnel mine? I’ll bet the little troublemaker’s extremist parents have reams of anti-personnel mines cached away at their terrorist cell headquarters!
The Gestapo knows all…. They just need the neighborhood informants…. Sig Hiel….
That girl looks like a stoned cold killer. The local head of the teacher’s union should have done a full body cavity search on that killer.
As I look @ the evidence my defense for this kid would be she was simply cutting out a map of Oklahoma. She made the panhandle a bit too wide, and should get a B-.
Good thing she didn’t add a paper “clip.”
This is an astounding case. I think it would be prudent to make sure that there are not any books in the library that mention or show pictures of guns because the kids could cut out the “real” thing! Yikes.
If she pulled on a teacher they could have got her for assault, On the other hand how come several sheriffs are telling citizens to arm themselves, could it be because they can’t save you if you call 911 so save yourself?
Ban the letter L! You never know how it might be used! Ban the map of Utah for the same reason.
Does anybody wonder why our school system can’t teach kids anymore? Fake pills, a corner cut out of a piece of paper, handing a kid an aspirin, plastic forks in school lunches. Yes indeed our kids are terrorists and we should spend way more time searching them than teaching them how to read and do math problems.
looks to me like somebody tore a corner off to write a note and pass it in class… wonder what the reaction to that would be. hey, wait, “her grandfather gave her the “gun”" — wha’?
Can someone perhaps mail or email our comments to the school board of that school out in Philladelphia.
East of the Mississipppi, the Ten Commandments dont apply.
I tear off corners of note paper to throw gum away – I didn’t realize I have a tote bag full of “guns”
Didn’t you mean to write “Glock,” instead of “block.”
Bronx police arrested a seven-year-old boy, put him in handcuffs and held him in custody for ten hours after a playground fight over $5, according to a $250 million claim brought by the child’s family against the city and the NYPD. Officers allegedly arrived at the Bronx public school on Dec. 4 in the morning and handcuffed and held Wilson Reyes in a room there for four hours before taking him to the station house for another six hours of interrogation and verbal abuse, the suit alleges.
The New York Post reports that Reyes’ mother found him at the police precinct, “panicked” and “seated in a shabby chair with his left wrist cuffed to the wall.”
The incident apparently began when Reyes’ was falsely accused by another child of stealing $5, provoking a scuffle. Children seven to 17-years-old can be tried as juveniles and Reyes originally faced a robbery charge before another child admitted to taking the money and charges against the seven-year-old were dropped. But Reyes’ family a seeking damages.
“I never imagined the cops could do that to a child. We’re traumatized,” his mother, Frances Mendez told The New York Post. “It’s unfathomable, what the police did. The whole thing sounds so stupid. They were interrogating him like he was a hardened criminal,” said Mendez’s attorney, Jack Yanowitz.
The city has responded to the claims saying Mendez’s account is “grossly untrue” and that “the child was held in the precinct… less than half of the time mentioned” — which still means a seven-year-old was held for well over four hours over by police.”
Do they have special sized handcuffs for 7 year olds? Or do they just use the zip ties?