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Daylight Savings Time Puts Kid in Jail for 12 Days
Jherek Carnelian writes "Cody Webb was jailed for calling in a bomb threat to his Hempstead Area high school (near Pittsburgh). He spent 12 days in lockup until the authorities realized that their caller-id log was off an hour because of the new Daylight Savings Time rules and that Cody had only called one hour prior to the actual bomb threat. Perhaps it took so long because of the principal's Catch-22 attitude about Cody's guilt — she said, 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.'"
... wrongful imprisonment? I thought you could.
There is a war going on for your mind.
This kind of draconian, presumptive, knee-jerk response is exactly what people seem to be calling for from Virginia Tech...after all, "what if" this could have been a real bombing? Maybe even the worst school bombing in US history? They needed to react vigorously and without thinking and full consideration of the situation, right? I mean, after all, the daylight savings change is just a minor oversight. They could have been saving lives, right?
I mean, we should be able to, within less than two hours, have an overly aggressive "lock down" a 700 building, 2600 acre, 30000+ person city-like area because of an isolated domestic incident in a dorm, but we shouldn't have an overly aggressive response against this kind of possible school violence?
To anyone who thinks Virginia Tech has ANY culpability here,
1. Remember what your response would be to ridiculous "zero tolerance" tactics on any topic, and
2. Read the below first.
Commentary included from here, here, and here.
And yes, I believe this is "on topic" and highly related given the accusations that are being levied against VT.
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When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
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Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one d
Article doesn't contain too much information, but the reg (byo grain of salt) sez:wtf? WMDs? I guess they just can't be found anywhre huh?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
These are the people we want teaching our children? Or we want our children to become/emulate? I'm not sure which is more shocking -- the fact that they jumped to conclusions based on a couple of pieces of evidence or the fact that it took 12 days for some bright person to remember the switch in Daylight Time.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
This kid is not going to have to worry about college tuition... His family will sue and they will be awarded a large settlement because of this... Just you wait and see...
I like to believe that, in America at least, we avoid this "Catch-22" wherein we assume from the get go that the alleged criminal is innocent until proven guilty. Which gives them no motive to lie. After the fact, it may be revealed they were lying but you have to prove it first. Most of the time, they are caught within their lies and their guilt is exposed that way.
Relying on one instance of evidence that relies heavily on technology, is a pretty shaky case in my opinion. The principal has graciously illustrated why this is a risky assumption to make. I don't think I need to expound on my general feelings of how the RIAA uses the same techniques in their settle out of court cases but there is definitely a direct relationship here.
I feel that, as a society, we don't give our children enough credit. I've posted about this before and I'm sure I'll post about it again. If you don't apply the same ideas of justice & freedom to children, how can you expect them to grow up with those same virtues instilled? You can't, really. Once they turn 18, they still remember a lot prior to being 18. Any injustices they suffered are probably not forgotten.
While I have not raised a child, I have volunteered at local grade schools to teach the children about engineering. I go and set up some sort of challenge that involves engineering with limited resources. One of my most horrific experiences wasn't watching some child verbally or physically assault another child, it was actually a teacher/student exchange. The challenge was to build a tower out of cards and after several failures and few successes, I decided to wrap up with some basics in mechanical engineering. I asked the class why they chose a square structure to build their tower in. One particularly energetic imp told me it was clearly the most stable. I corrected him and said that actually a dome is a more stable structure. But he persisted and asked why were 99% of buildings made in a square formation. I really didn't have an answer
I pretty much blame myself for not encouraging the kid to research it on his own. But I thought about it a lot afterwards and wondered if we don't give our children enough credit. Does this happen often? Do children get stereotyped as "the problem child" with no possible second chance? Are they doomed once teachers look for this type of behavior. I hope not but this story with the principal assuming the kid was wrong is just another example, though my personal example is probably a case of no exoneration.
My work here is dung.
There is a more detailed account of the story here.
Read any good sonnets lately?
"Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time."
When did the RIAA go into the education business?
I live in the area and have known about this story for a week or two...
We was calling to see if school had been canceled due to weather. He called an hour before or after the bomb threat. When they matched the phone records versus the actual time of the call they found his number erroneously because of DST problems and the time difference.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The principal is an ordinary member of the public. She didn't arrest the kid or charge him. She supplied mistaken evidence that this was the culprit, which was pretty inept, but the rest of the system should have caught this.
Why wasn't he interviewed by the police in the prescence of an adult immediately? Isn't there meant to be some advocate protecting the accused rights, especially with a 15 year old?
Surely a decent investigation should have gone something like:
cop: We have this recording of the threat.
Defender: Uhm. That doesn't sound much like this kid. Are you sure you got the right guy?
Defender and cop disappear. Re-appear later.
cop: Sorry about that. You're free to go.
Why, yes they are!
:-)
Back in my HS days I found a VCR in a locker. The VCR had been stolen from a classroom. I reported it to the administration office. The VP promptly accused me of getting "cold feet" about the theft and called the cops on me, even though I was in class when the supposed theft occurred two days prior (there was an exam, thus I had a reasonable alibi). None of my explanations mattered, nor apparently did the B&E that I committed in opening the locker. She was fixated that I (or my buddy who was with me) had stolen the VCR. Cops were called and we were separated and interviewed by the sheriff.
Funny thing, we both told the sheriff the same story, but when pressed we both confessed to the B&E portion (which was a crime as there was a lock on the locker). I actually did it, but out of some sense of loyalty he confessed to it. Ultimately the VPs single mindedness that we stole it was in our favor, as once the unit was dusted for prints, ours were nowhere to be found. No charges on the B&E because the VP continued to insist that we must have stolen it somehow, and simply wiped our prints off it. You can't argue with people like that. They're nearly as fanatical as those FSM creationist folks
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
And in other news, "Zygamorph expelled for inciting violence against principal because school doesn't understand common expression, 'egg on your face' and assumed the principal was to be assaulted with actual eggs." ;-)
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I've eaten in the Hempstead cafeteria. They definitely have WMDs.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Wow. Sounds a lot like America's attitude to terrorists.
sig not found. please replace sig.
Yeah! Public Apology! It's not like intentional denial of due process is worthy of prison time and never being allowed in a position of authority again or anything, he should say he's sorry, and he should mean it!
Sarcasm is the highest for of wit.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Last time I checked, high schools do not have jails. Maybe the principal pointed his finger at this kid, but it's the police who were dumb enough to believe him without doing the proper investigation.
For most of us who have real IT jobs, the DST update was a pain. The article is about how an online nuisance to us has caused a real-world nuisance to this kid.
A public school worker who doesn't believe in the rights that our forefathers shed blood for and died for? Anyone actually surprised by this?
The public school system is the love child of 1984 and Lord of the Flies. I would have thought that people would have learned by now that it is unfixable.
and typos are the most annoying form of spelling error :/
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Can we please blame this on video games? Maybe the educator assumed that since he played video games he was a bad kid.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.
http://www.hempfieldarea.k12.pa.us/webdir/charlton /index.htm
"Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time."
That's no catch-22. A catch-22 is a situation whereupon two actions are dependent on one another. A chicken-or-the-egg sort of thing. This quote is close, but it's not a catch-22.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic)
Sorry to pick a nit.
It's interesting. My son, who's eight, never lies. In fact, if I ask him if he's done something and I say I don't believe him, he gets incredibly upset. My daughter, who's three, will freely lie if it gets her out of anything. "Did you wash your hands? Did mom say it's okay?" To some degree, it's a measure of maturity. Eventually people figure out that the elusive concept of "trust" is more valuable than the short-term gains made by lying. Not everyone figures this out, and many people lie about small things ("Yes, honey, that dress looks great."). Still, I'd like to think that most kids are mostly honest.
What's frustrating to me is when school officials "play detective" when they're so clearly untrained to do so. I've had to play detective at work, tracking down people doing bad things electronically. While it was interesting, I had absolutely no interest on doing anything other than gathering information to present to someone else. Jumping up and down and yelling "We got him!" sounds like poor deductive reasoning.
"WMD" has become almost as much a euphemism for "The Man can do anything he wants" as "terrorism" and "child pornography"; not the root password to the Constitution, say, but at least superuser. And it's been written into all kinds of state and local criminal codes which will never, ever, under any conceivable scenario, be applied to people actually using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. It's been used to charge drug dealers on the absurd theory that drugs are WMD -- er, no, people don't generally wander the streets begging dealers to sell them sarin gas to use on themselves! And of course any explosive device (whether said device exists or not ...) will be labeled WMD by some ambitious prosecutor, because it grabs headlines. The original meaning has been diluted to the point where the phrase is useless, and can therefore mean anything you want it to, which is exactly how the people who abuse it want things.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
George W. Bush came up with the idea to move it. Benjamin Franklin came up with the original idea of daylight savings, but having actually read the essay in which he proposes it, it sounds to me like he meant it as a joke. I mean, he says that while he was trying to explain that he had woken up at 6am and it was light, no one would believe him that it could possibly be light outside at that hour! As if no one had ever awoken at 6am before he did. In the same essay, he also advocates the following energy saving measures:
First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun.
Second. Let the same salutary operation of police be made use of, to prevent our burning candles, that inclined us last winter to be more economical in burning wood; that is, let guards be placed in the shops of the wax and tallow chandlers, and no family be permitted to be supplied with more than one pound of candles per week.
Third. Let guards also be posted to stop all the coaches, &c. that would pass the streets after sunset, except those of physicians, surgeons, and midwives.
Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest.
The essay was either sharp social commentary regarding man's (and government's) attempts to rule everyone's lives by the clock (even going so far as to mandate daylight should only occur during certain hours of the day!), or Franklin was at least half off his rocker when he wrote it. I choose to believe the former.
Ideally, the police chief admits wrongdoing and reaches some financial settlement, min 10 k$
These sorts of incidents (wrongful arrest) are usually worth about $20,000 if the person is NOT held for any significant time and NOT charged inappropriately with a crime. This is very likely to be a mid six-figure settlement against the city, due to the length of time he was incarcerated, the charges that were filed and maintained, and the appalling lack of evidence in the first place. The high school may not bear true legal responsibility in a strict sense, but if they're smart they'll settle for a 5-figure sum to avoid the litigation and the risk of a jury award. If he has a good attorney and invests his money, this kid will be wealthy for the rest of his life. And he should be, I think.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree that it was ultimately the fault of the police for wrongfully arresting and holding the child, and not the principle. However I do believe that as somewhat of a figurehead in the community, the principle of the HS should be held publicly accountable for her actions. It was completely unprofessional, and she should loose her job for it, as well as be required to make some sort of public apology or reparation. I'd love to see that, personally I had so many disciplinarians in high school say whatever they wanted without backing it up, and without having to later answer for their actions.
My actions at work would never result in a minor's civil rights being trampled on. Apples & oranges. People who we basically put in charge of raising our kids should have at least a grain of foresight & should be held to higher standards. Also, in general, they should be paid a lot more.
There is a war going on for your mind.
How is this different from the way we treat any of our terrorism suspects? It was a bomb threat. He should be happy he was only in jail 12 days and not 5 years.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It was Hempfield Area High School, not "Hempstead". Also, a link to a story that actually works: story time
I'm french, and although the law explicitely say we are innocent until proven guilty (some newspapers were condemened for having printed photos of people with handcuffs before the trial), I have a story for you (remember that we didn't have much terrorism or mass murder here, and peadophilia is therefore the most horrible crime the average french man can think of).
A few years ago, in Pontoise (a small town near Paris), several men (about 15 if I remember well) were put to jail after someone anonymously reported them to have raped their own children. Of course, they've lost everything and their wifes got whatever was left at the divorce. Until one policeman noticed that all those divorced were initiated BEFORE the anonymous report and that all the wifes had the same lawyer, who was eventualy identified as the anonymous source. Those people were released, but most of them were already destoyed.
After reading the more detailed article, I was even more upset that after the kid had been cleared the authorities still insisted on keeping him jailed in order to perform a mental health evaluation because he wouldn't admit to making the call. I hope that the kids parents decide to sue. I doubt that they will because they sound like they have no backbone. The principal should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If you don't apply the same ideas of justice & freedom to children, how can you expect them to grow up with those same virtues instilled? You can't, really. Once they turn 18, they still remember a lot prior to being 18. Any injustices they suffered are probably not forgotten.
Too true my friend, too true. A good example from my own past is cops.
I was a teenager and I got pulled over for having a crappy car. Twice in two different cities. I wasn't speeding, I wasn't playing loud music - I was just trying to get to work. How do I know that's what I was pulled over for? Both times the cop said so.
I was searched. My car was searched "for drugs". One cop told me to get my "piece of shit car out of his city and not come back".
That was close to 20 years ago. I'm now nearing 40, have a nice job, and drive a brand new Prius. Or my minivan. I am invisible to cops, and haven't had any reasons given in the last 20 years to dislike them.
But still every time I pass one on the road I think "motherfuckers".
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
A more reputable source (namely the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) confirms this: "charged with a felony count of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction and misdemeanor counts of making false alarms."
In hindsight, maybe evacuating campus immediately after the first shootings (when there was no reason to believe they were anything other than an isolated incident) MIGHT have saved lives. But think about it--as far as I'm aware, they don't really know what the shooter was doing in the two hours between incidents. For all we know he was hanging around on the drill field, waiting for an evacuation to send hundreds of panicked students out into the open. Or maybe he was in one of the buildings, hoping a lockdown would give him plenty of time to do his work while preventing his victims from making a run for it (from what I've read, he attempted to do just this on his own by chaining a door shut). Keep in mind, we're not just talking about evacuating a dorm here, but an entire campus. How do you move that many people quickly? Where do they go? Or do you lock them down in place without having any idea of where the killer might have gone? Givn that the first killings were in a dorm, do you ask everybody who lives in that hall to rush back there and lock themselves in? MAYBE evacuation/lockdown would have saved some lives. Maybe it wouldn't have. But to suggest that the VT cops should have made that call with little or no information to justify it is nothing more than Monday-morning quarterbacking.
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this is actually the perfect example of begging the question. contrary to popular opinion, "begging the question" does not mean "demanding that the question be asked." it is a form of logical fallacy in which you assume what you are trying to prove.
using the fact that someone was accused of a crime to discredit their defense of that crime is a prime example of begging the question.
the example of "a catch-22" from the book catch-22 is the following: if a pilot is crazy, he will not have to fly more missions (since he will be placed on medical leave). if a pilot does not want to fly more missions, he is not crazy (since he values his own life, therefore he has to fly more missions). so if you're not crazy, you fly more missions. if you say you are crazy, the army assumes you are just trying to save your own life, therefore you are not crazy, and therefore you still fly more missions. that's the quick summary, anyway.
The Real WTF (tm) is that they would jail a student for making a bomb threat, even if a hoax. What ever happened to just a week of detention? If we are that paranoid, then the Terrorists Have Already Won (tm).
"Hello, USA? Hi, this is Iran. Umm, we were just wondering, why are you bombing us?
"Oh, like you don't know!"
And if there's anything a minor needs more of, it's more reasons to have a nice, healthy hatred for the system and the "Man". Shit like this for minors just makes more anarchists as adults. What do you do? Shoot them all? Congratulations: you are now a fascist government.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Leave it to the lawyers and courts, because that's what the they did before they put the kid in the slammer.
:(){
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bit of a spelling mistake in there...
s/clocks/cocks/
"The Slashdot effect" is bad enough. We can all individually look this information up, but when people start posting it with requisite "tee-hee, let THIS guy know" comments, it's an attempt to incite an electronic flashmobs and that is totally irresponsible, abusive and in the end pointless.
Not according to this article. They did have a lawyer, who managed to get him released to their custody before charges were dropped. It's not clear why it took 12 days to do it, but they didn't believe the principal over their son.
The family's lawyer is quoted a number of times in the article as well.
"If you have kids and don't have even $500-1000 in funds of some sort for any emergency, you are not being a good, responsible parent."
Yeah, well, that's what happens when you work for Wal-Mart. You get no health care insurance, and just enough money to pay for rent and food.
Selfish parents, spending that money on food.
Seriously, what world do you live in that working poor people have $1,000 set aside to pay for an attorney?
It's my belief they should sue, not for damages, but to punish the idiots who can't actually do their job.
I don't understand where your numbers come from. Firstly, it would make no sense to use the parents' income in place of the son's, since they weren't behind bars and thereby lost no income. Secondly, if we do assume they could, and we do assume an income of 30-50k, we're looking at $100-200 per day. So, for 12 days, we arrive at $1200-2400 lost, meaning they could sue for a whopping $2400-4800 based off of income. Remember, it is *lost* income that they get to sue for.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Let's hope this tragedy leads to repealing the laws banning firearms on college campuses in VA. After all, one guy with a pistol could've cut his rampage short.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Specifically I was proving to my buddy how insecure the locker locks were. Not that I had a reputation for breaking into things and/or lying, just picked a damn unlucky locker to pop open. But pragmatically I broke in, then discovered the VCR, hence my open admission of B&E, though the VP didn't care or register that, she could have just used that against me with or without the VCR. Her fixation on the VCR ultimately saved my ass as the cop(s) realized that I was scared enough and there was no case on the point of VCR.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
> I'm tired of the illegal justice system in the US.
...as you seem to be stuck in 1969.
> The one that lets the rich go free and throws the poor in jail
Please correct that to:
> throws the middle class in jail
The 'poor' of today, who get free legal assistance, free health care and free university education, can afford to jaunt about in SUVs whilst blabbering into a cell phone. The middle class have to pay the taxes to support this; whilst paying out-of-pocket for university and marginal health insurance, and struggling to make ends meet. No wonder the middle class vote Republican so often... the Dems with their endless social programs ensure this.
I sincerely doubt that this kid was 'poor'. There would be an army of lawyers who couldn't wait to get their names in the newspapers, if it were so.
(But the Dems are rich too. Living in a gated community, one may actually think that the 'poor' need more help, at the expense of the middle class of course.)