This is my alma mater, and my sister woke me at 9:45 this morning with a text message telling me the school was in lockdown because there was a man with a gun on school property.
Later they all found out what really happened, after the kid was led of to jail (and rumor has it with a $300,000 bail, which sounds suspect...)
What this article doesn't mention is the fact that the school thought he was carrying a gun -- thus the unbelievable amount of police involvement. There were helicopters, people!
I can understand the overreaction, mainly in part because I know my high school and we've been evacuated for someone having drawn a fake round bomb with a fuse on a chalkboard. I realize also in this day-and-age it's better to err on the side of caution.
But it was a senior prank. The graduating class the year ahead of me had members sleep on the roof overnight and sit, legs dangling over the sides of the building, to welcome the students to the new day of school. I believe they were given detentions.
But because people misunderstood, because they thought he was armed when he wasn't, and because of the unecessary expense spent to bring in all those police forces (my sister claimed the FBI was there, though this article doesn't mention that) they arrested him.
( this article does mention the FBI. And, I might point out, describes a bomb search when there was No reason to suspect a bomb...)
My sister and a group of her friends knew the boy and are already forming a group to protest his arrest, they were making t-shirts tonight, spouting phrases like "Harmless Prank, Harmful Reaction"
Thoughts? I realize on the coattails of the Cookie Girls, this seems to be an issue that Hatrackers will be split down the middle about: half will feel he should have foreseen an explosive reaction to his actions, half will feel he was unfairly judged and the reaction (and subsequent punishments) are out of proportion to the crime.
Personally, I think it's silly. If someone hadn't freaked and cried "Gun," I'm sure none of this would have happened. It almost feels like they're arresting and charging him to save face.
posted
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe someone is prosecuted on intent and the actual harm done. If this is so, then this guy should just be getting a slap on the wrist, if that, given the traditions of the school and his age.
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posted
I suppose they can still get him on the resisting arrest charge, though...I wonder why he resisted?
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quote:Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe someone is prosecuted on intent and the actual harm done. If this is so, then this guy should just be getting a slap on the wrist, if that, given the traditions of the school and his age.
You can prosecute without actual or apparent harm. The inchoate crimes of attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation are good examples. Take conspiracy: you essentially need evidence of the agreement and an overt act in pursuit of the conspiracy. The rationale for allowing the law to punish people at the "early" (read "pre harm") stage, is because group activity is seen as more dangerous. Attempt is similar--you need to show intent to commit or bring about a result that amounts to a crime and an act in furtherance, that goes beyond mere preparation. Here the rationale is to stop someone who's shown themselves to be dangerous.
posted
Yeah, his lawyer will have to be hammering on the intent issue. It very much depends on what he's actually charged with. Even then, negligence is enough to sustain conviction on some crimes. Usually those are the crimes with more severe harm (like death), but not always.
I can't shake the feeling that there is much more to this story than we can get from the papers.
posted
It seems the equivalents of yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre keep expanding. So yeah, I think whoever shouted "gun" should also be arrested, and whoever had the initial bright idea that a masked intruder = bomb threat. All three should bear the brunt, not just the kid in the monkey suit. But it's too early in the year for pranks, I think.
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posted
Dagonee, I think I know a bit more than the papers because my sister knows the boy...apparently he is part of a group of boys that play pranks -- they even have a name for themselves. I know that the other boys are surprised that he went through with it, and that his girlfriend broke up with him a few days earlier.
I don't know if *any* of that indicates a more malicious or destructive intent that a mere senior prank, but there you have it.
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posted
Mainly, I'm wondering how "gun" or "bomb" came into it. If one of his prank-pals did it jokingly once he started, the prosecutor may be able to make a case that it was all one big prank, and impute the gun threat to the monkey boy.
posted
I was wondering as much myself, and at least for the bomb threat -- Oley's had MANY, MANY before this, and it might have been a knee-jerk assumption that a bomb threat was to follow the prancing monkey boy on the roof.
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posted
At the school board meeting tonight the members plan on discussing whether to expell the boy or not.
My sister and a group of her friends (at least seven others) wore the t-shirts to school today and promptly had them confiscated with a refusal to return them, even after the school day ended.
At least 15 + students will be attending the meeting tonight, along with numerous parents from the community, to protest not only his possible expulsion, but the obvious stifling of freedom of expression (though vulgar messages can be banned from school, a supreme court ruling says that any other kind of expression is allowed on clothing -- the kids were allowed to wear pro-Bush/Kerry tshirts, after all)
I am planning on attending, if only to see the school board utterly at a loss to cope with a real issue...
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quote:My sister and a group of her friends (at least seven others) wore the t-shirts to school today and promptly had them confiscated with a refusal to return them, even after the school day ended.
At least 15 + students will be attending the meeting tonight, along with numerous parents from the community, to protest not only his possible expulsion, but the obvious stifling of freedom of expression (though vulgar messages can be banned from school, a supreme court ruling says that any other kind of expression is allowed on clothing -- the kids were allowed to wear pro-Bush/Kerry tshirts, after all)
They have a likely cause of action there - there are several cases disallowing non-content-neutral limitations clothing in schools.
posted
Wow. Your school is psycho! You would think that with the potential legal fight in front of them they would be careful not to overstep their bounds in other areas like freedom of expression.
During my final exams one year, an announcement came over the loudspeaker instructing all teachers to search the bags of everybody in the school for water balloons, as there was "a problem" with them. I did submit to the search, but I was really close to raising a stink about it. Of course, I would have been blackballed, and I'm a coward, so I didn't.
It sounds like even if your monkey friend does end up getting screwed, you still have a case for the first amendment violation. If you don't know how to proceed in this case, you might think about giving the good 'ol ACLU a call.
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quote:A regulation issued by public school authorities prohibiting students from wearing black armbands during school hours to publicize their objections to the hostilities in Vietnam and their support for a truce, violates the students' constitutional rights to free speech under the First Amendment, where there was no evidence that the school authorities had reason to anticipate that the wearing of the armbands would substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students or that the prohibition was necessary to avoid material and substantial interference with school-work or discipline, but on the contrary the action of the school authorities appeared to have been based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to the United States' involvement in Vietnam, and where the school authorities did not purport to prohibit the wearing of all symbols of political or controversial significance but instead singled out the black armbands in question.
quote:In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. Certainly where there is no finding and no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school," the prohibition cannot be sustained. Burnside v. Byars, supra, at 749.
Unless they can come up with some compelling reason that they expected your T-Shirts to devolve into students exchanging fisticuffs, the Tinker test does not apply here.
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Well, this will be very helpful to their case tonight, so I'll definitely print it out and pass it along. Thanks so much for the research!
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posted
Well, since it was a public entity that did the stealing, it wouldn't be theft, it would be unwarranted seizure without due process of law (aka theft:D) You do have a good due process claim going, though. I think the first amendment part is more important, myself, but you could go with either one, or both.
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posted
I don't see why they are going so nuts over it. He didn't do anything threatening, he just ran around with a monkey mask. I see why they locked things down at first, but once they realized what the situation was they should have let it go.
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posted
You know, Throwing a kid in jail for a stupid harmless prank is one thing, but doing it and posting a $300,000 bail is steping over the line...
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quote:You know, Throwing a kid in jail for a stupid harmless prank is one thing, but doing it and posting a $300,000 bail is steping over the line...
I really didn't think about it before, but you are right. It really is a spiteful thing to do. It is not like this kid could run, he is a kid after all. The only possible reason I could think would be if his family is very rich and they are thinking that they might send him about of the country...but even that does not make sense. Why would you run from such a stupid charge?
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quote: and also covered his car's license plate with a piece of fabric.
A blue bag found outside the school prompted an evacuation and the need for bomb-sniffing dogs, White said. The students were herded across the street and kept there for 45 minutes until police determined that the bag contained a teacher's lunch. Back in the school, students got a free meal.
Covering his license plate, if that is what happened, was very ill-thought out. Bags left out aren't a big deal until a security situation is underway. How unfortunate. I see the article agreed with me on the appropriate timing of a senior prank.
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posted
His friends are saying he didn't cover his license plate, but I don't know the truth of the situation. Also, the bag wasn't his.
Just got back from the school board meeting -- i can honestly say I've never been prouder of my high school. There were over 35 juniors and seniors there to support the kid, and one that stood up to speak had really done her homework about the Tinker supreme court case -- she was eloquent and well-spoken about the t-shirts and got her point across succinctly.
They began the meeting saying there were no plans to expell the boy, so that was one major issue taken care of.
The kids didn't get an answer about the t-shirts, though, which annoyed me enough that I almost stood up to speak, but this board puts a limit on how many people can speak once they start getting tired of what everyone is saying.
(mack, after they took the t-shirts, they were wearing their school pride, of course....also, the shirts they had on underneath:))
Unsurprisingly, the board handled itself very poorly and even thought they didn't expell the kid, they still came off sounding like the bad guy. Good thing i didn't cover this meeting tonight, it would have been BIASED.
Basically the kids did great, and even brought up some pretty jarring points (if the school is to be commended on how well they handled the situation, assuming as they were that a real threat existed, and if they're claiming that security was their number 1 priority -- how come an entire classroom was not evacuated from the building once the bomb threat began? umm...good thing nothing exploded!)
All in all, it went well for the community. But I really hate that school board.
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posted
So, what's the status on this? Is the kid back in school? Are the students going to file a claim for first amendment violation? Will the student be charged? Has he retained a lawyer?
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posted
I don't know if running around in a monkey mask is a form of protected speech. If he were doing it to state his support of evolutionary theory, maybe but as a prank I just don't think it applies.
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As of now, the bail was reduced to 50,000 after the superintendent and the principal went and pleaded for the boy, so he's home now. He is suspended for ten days from the date of the incident, which was Tuesday.
As for the t-shirts, they weren't returned. My sister said she went in late and didn't want to deal with it today. I told her I would go and get the t-shirts back for her, but she didn't jump at the chance. I don't know why the kids aren't more up-in-arms about this...it's ridiculous!
I will be going in if they don't voluntarily return those shirts by tomorrow, though.
posted
It's actually funny about the monkey mask being a form of free expression---
one of the parents that spoke at the schoolboard meeting said that even though the boy had no intention of making a statement, he did, one that showed that "the school was open to terrorist attacks" i thought that was interesting, because obviously the school *is* vulnerable, and the kid unwittingly showed just that.
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posted
Therein lies the problem. The only way the school board is actually going to learn this lesson is if one or more of those students are willing to spend several years in litigation and be ostracized by a large portion of the community.
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posted
What school isn't open to terrorist attacks? Unless you make each school the equivalent to a maximum security prison any group of heavily armed men could easily overwhelm the usually single school police officer and wreck havoc on the school. Even if it was one man with a bomb strapped to his chest how hard would it be for him to walk into the school and blow himself up? The reality is we can't be completely safe from singular random acts be determined individuals. The teen didn't show us anything new.
I just wanted to let you all know that I will def. push for our shirts to be returned. If they weren't returned already.
The boy is welcome back into Oley Valley High school in 9 days. And believe me...he will get quite the welcome mat.
We are all still extremely upset about the reactions of our school and the law. We will undoubtedly not let this issue subside until our points are made ..clearly. We know that just because the school was saving face by not expelling him, they 100% were not on his side in these matters. Their actions were unjustified in the taking of our t-shirts..they think they have won. I know better.
Welcome to Hatrack (look at me, extending welcomes with fewer than 800 posts under my belt. How uppity!)
The first thing you want to do is decide what you want to get out of this. Do you just want the shirts back, or are you going to want a public apology published in the local newspaper, whatever. The next thing you need to do is write a letter to the person in charge of the school (probably your principal) explaining your concerns. Who knows. The principal might be perfectly willing to co-operate. Once he/she sees that a violation of the rights of the students has occured, he/she might want to correct it of his/her own volition. If that doesn't work, you should probably seek legal counsel of some sort to see what your options are. That sounds expensive, but don't worry! I'm sure that if you call one of the organizations that protect civil rights, they would be happy to help you figure out what options are available to you. In fact, you may want to give them a call before you do anything, just to see what sort of remedy can usually be expeected in a case like this. I have taken the liberty of looking up the Pennsylvania ACLU number for you, and they would be very good to have on your side. Just drop them a line at 215.592.1513 and they can probably give you better advice than anybody here.
One other thing. Remember that if you have to take this far enough, you may get your hands dirty. The school is clearly in the wrong, but a lot of your peers might rather you just don't rock the boat. Your teachers are not assured to support you if you are heading up a campaign to censure the school. Anytime you challenge authority you take risks. Be prepared to face those risks and don't be caught off guard if people in the community don't understand why you are fighting. That said, I encourage you to go for it! Your civil liberties won't defend themselves, after all! Good luck and keep us posted.
quote: You can prosecute without actual or apparent harm. The inchoate crimes of attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation are good examples. Take conspiracy: you essentially need evidence of the agreement and an overt act in pursuit of the conspiracy. The rationale for allowing the law to punish people at the "early" (read "pre harm") stage, is because group activity is seen as more dangerous. Attempt is similar--you need to show intent to commit or bring about a result that amounts to a crime and an act in furtherance, that goes beyond mere preparation. Here the rationale is to stop someone who's shown themselves to be dangerous.
I appreciate the clarification, but does this not agree with what I said, 'intent and harm'?
edit: It's the 'and', isn't it? Dar.
I'm aware that someone can be prosecuted without actual harm, and was trying to get that across. Unfortunately, me not speak English very well.
posted
I'll make sure she sees this tomorrow, demosthenes, and thank you So much for all the research you've done and your advice. Everyone's advice! Everything's been immensely helpful to me in getting ideas and I know Caitlin appreciates the work done on her behalf.
posted
I don't think your friend should have had that type of bail, but I understand why he did, and even sympathies with it. I also thing that teh principle and Superindendant did a good thing for him, arguing that the bail should be reduced.
He was stupid...and the suspension is warrented, because all of that happened. I don't think they were within their rights to take your shirts, even if they might have had just cause to ban you from wearing it. They could always argue that letting you wear them could encourage others from acting up in support, possibly endandering other students....
But nothing gives them the right to unlawfully seize your property, or prevent you from wearing them outside of school, off school grounds.
Unles you were at a school function or something.
Good luck, but keep in mind...regardless of if it was a prank or not, it cost a lot of money to mobilize all those people...and if it had been a bomb (you said you got a lot of threats about them) it would have been necessary. Look at it from their point of view.
One way or another, he wasn't all that bright that morning, was he? He isn't a hero....he deserves the suspension, and he is luck if they lower the charges to criminal mischeif.
quote:I'm aware that someone can be prosecuted without actual harm, and was trying to get that across. Unfortunately, me not speak English very well.
It's actually a standard type of confusion in English. When many people use "and," they mean "any one of these. For example, consider "fish and chicken can be used to make a very tasty broth." It's not clear if the tasty broth has both fish and chicken as the base, or if the person meant, "fish can be used to make a very tasty broth and chicken can be used to make a very tasty broth." This is repeated over and over. For example, if someone asked you to list the mid-Atlantic states, you might say "Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersy."
Now for the confusing part. There are several technical fields where the proper use is or. For example, when doing a database search, you would separate those terms by "OR", not "and", because the context is the repeated examination of a single item to see if it meets any one of the criteria. This conflict between wording in boolean alegebra and common English usage results in many confusions for users of database-driven search engines.
Similarly, in law, when we list elements, we list them with and, and we mean that all of them are required. We say that to convict someone of a crime, we must prove a culpable mental state and an act. This is just ingrained from day one: we list the elements, we use "and."
"Prosecuted on intent and the actual harm done" is very close to wording that might be used. I reached the same exact conclusion bunbun did (and would have posted something similar). However, your phrase very clearly could mean "someone can be prosectued on intent, and someone can be prosecuted on actual harm done."
However, that doesn't mean you used English wrong. It means you didn't use English in accord with legal standards. And there's no reason you should, outside a legal context. This is one reason it's important to get a lawyer to help with legal documents - stuff like this is so common, and often lawyers don't think about the differences enough.
posted
You know -- thinking about many of the pranks I, and my friends, did in high school..
...well, let's just say I'm very glad I went to high school 30 years ago instead of now. I would have been arrested so many times by today's standards.
But back then, they were kinda like "kids will be kids"
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