Slashdot Mirror
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 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.
I think a morning show radio personality here in Tampa said it best: "These kinds of things (referring to the shootings at VT) happen in a free society. And that's that unless we all want to live in a police state."
It's along the same lines as the infamous, possibly misquoted, possibly misattributed Ben Franklin quote: "They that would trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither."
So what is it? Do you want free society, where safety is sometimes an issue, or do you want a police state, where you might possibly be safer, but have no rights? Because those are your choices.
My blog
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.
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.
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.
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.