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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.
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?
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
I've eaten in the Hempstead cafeteria. They definitely have WMDs.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
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.
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.
...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.
"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.
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!
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Well, if you don't like the thought of a grassroot effort to make public sentiment known to the principal's employers, perhaps you could suggest another means of communicating the message?
It's easy to say 'Don't do that, it's rude'. It's a lot harder to come up with means of civil expression that AREN'T rude. And if rudeness is the only the public has left of expressing our disgust at the actions of authorities, then I say bring on the rudeness.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Yeah, if you want to do something useful, send the kid a printout of 18 USC section 1983.