Drawings of Weapons Led To New Jersey Student's Arrest

First time accepted submitter gannebraemorr writes with this news, snipped from a CBS News report out of New Jersey:"'The Superintendent of the Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District said around 2 pm Tuesday, a 16 year old student demonstrated behavior that caused concern. A teacher noticed drawings of what appeared to be weapons in his notebook. School officials made the decision to contact authorities. Police removed the 16-year-old boy from Cedar Creek High School in Galloway Township Tuesday afternoon after school officials became concerned about his behavior. The student was taken to the Galloway Township Police Department. Police then searched the boy's home on the 300 block of East Spencer Lane and found several electronic parts and several types of chemicals that when mixed together, could cause an explosion, police say. The unidentified teen was charged with possession of a weapon an [sic] explosive device and the juvenile was placed in Harbor Fields.' If 'chemicals that when mixed together, could cause an explosion' is a crime, I'm pretty sure everyone's cleaning cabinets are evidence just waiting to be found. Bottle of Coke and Mentos... BRB, someone knocking at the door."

Comments

New Idea for a Slashdot Poll

[cervesaebraciator]

In which of the following ways would you have been arrested if your child-self had gone to school today:

1) possession of a chemistry set;

2) possession of a pocket knife;

3) terroristic threatening ("Man, I'm gonna kill you at Mortal Kombat tonight.");

4) all of the above

Arrested for drawings and household chemicals?

[james_shoemaker]

I'm sure glad they weren't this paranoid when I was a kid. I remember sketching various nuclear weapon designs and discussing them with my physics teacher after class. I suppose it was OK because I didn't have a supply of fissionable material.

Phew...

[knarf]

Imagine what they'd have found in my room back in the '80s... Chemicals of all sorts, the more boom the more fun after all... electronic components disassembled from old broken unrepairable stuff and sorted into categories, ready to be assembled in new things. This including 'scary' stuff like CTV line transformers etc. Half-repaired electronics. A charged tractor battery under the bed with some carbon rods (from old batteries) to be used in carbon arc light experiments. A functional pulse jet engine, scarily-looking, cobbled together with moped parts to be auto-starting. An air gun. An electric guitar made from more moped parts and some pay phone speakers for pick-ups. Need I go on?

And to think that I've never even had so much as a speeding ticket...

Of course I lived in the Netherlands, and it was 30 years ago...

Re:DRAWINGS ARE NOT 'BEHAVIOR'. PERIOD.

[LVSlushdat]

I'm 62, and the direction this country is going makes me absolutely sick to my stomach, but if you were to leave for another country, where would it be? As bad as America is getting, its still FAR better than 99.99% of the rest of the world. Take Australia for example.. I visited there twice back in the 70s, once on US Army RnR from Vietnam and once on temporary duty with my Army unit, for a total of just over 2 weeks. I was so taken with the people, the VAST open spaces, and the opportunity, I came very close to emigrating there. When I was there I read the papers (Sydney) and saw virtually no violent crime during both visits. But now, I read that violent crime is WAY up, since the Australian people have, essentially, been disarmed, like Britain. Not to mention, all of the Orwellian stuff that the current Australian (and UK) governments are constantly trying to shove down the peoples throat... TL;DR; I have NO idea where you could go that's any better than the USA..

Re:No harm done

[Zemran]

I think we had better close down all the schools in farming districts where people have large amounts of potassium chlorate and also have sugar in their kitchen...