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Florida Teen Expelled and Arrested For Science Experiment
First time accepted submitter ruhri writes "A 16 year-old girl in Florida not only has been expelled from her high school but also is being charged as an adult with a felony after replicating the classic toilet-bowl cleaner and aluminum foil experiment. This has quite a number of scientists and science educators up in arms. The fact that she's African American and that the same assistant state attorney has decided not to charge a white teenager who accidentally killed his brother with a BB gun has some thinking whether this is a case of doing science while black."
There we go, playing the race card. Sigh. What does a kid with a BB gun have to do with this? Nothing, but it "creates the narrative". We all know what the narrative is, race race race. It's always first on the list and it always gets shoehorned in even if it doesn't belong. Everyone sees it but due to the mainstream media's gatekeeper role nobody can talk back. This is why Americans distrust the media, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Lets not attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.
And in this case, I hardly believe its about one being black,although it could play a part, it beingthe us,it seems more a thing about one being gun related and the other science related.
We all know what many americans hate most.
I don't think that this is race related, I think that the punishment is so harsh because everyone is scared of improvised explosive devices after Boston. When I first heard the story it was reported as "An Acid Bomb was Set Off At a Local High School".
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Where is cowboy neal when you need him :'(
Jails for the mind. NCLB has ruined education, by far GWB worst piece of policy. That coupled with "zero tolerance" which equates to "no thinking by staff" we are ruining a generation of kids. Teaching to tests, which NCLB does prohibits this kind of "thinking" to experiment.
I'd have a rap sheet a mile long if I was in school and I only graduated 14y ago. And I didn't even do anything bad!
School authorities in Florida have always been on the retarded side of the coin. Suspending or expelling kids for this kind of thing is really disgusting. God it is depressing. I went to school in Florida and was lucky that most of my teachers were good at their jobs. But those above teachers in the school food chain are some of the worst creeps you could ever imagine.
America is a bunch of pussies now. Had something like this happened in the 50s-80s..maybe even the 90s, the result would have been a stern reprimand and at most a couple days suspension. This "Daddy" syndrome needs to end. I doubt even the French would freak out the way the school and DA have.
So now anything that blows up is automatically a weapon? I hope their school buses don't run on gas or diesel engines, then they would have to charge all the bus drivers with bringing weapons to school every day.
This is almost as stupid as suspending a 7 year old for having a pastry that's vaguely gun-shaped.
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/03/pastry-gun.html
Reading the police report suddenly turns into "friend told this girl to mix the two and see what happens". "friend" then runs off. This wasn't a science fair, or a science experiment. it was "hey yall watch this" in a school. No article mentions it was at an actual science fair, she just inserted the word into her statement.
When I was in school, it was basically a full time job for many of us boys to figure out ways to make ever larger and more dramatic explosions happen. We used to fill trash bags full of methane from the lab, seal them with tape, then release them with a lit fuse and watch this huge fireball in the sky (I stopped before the principal took notice, so I didn't get caught:). I mean, kids just do stuff like that.
The difference today is the zero-tolerance rules in many public schools where even a little 6-year-old boy making a shape of a gun with his hand and going "bang!" at another kid is grounds for suspension.
As usual, bureaucracy gets it wrong. That girl should be reinstated and an apology should be issued, otherwise she'll be barred for life from many professions (albeit, as a minor theoretically her record is sealed, but in reality she's screwed).
And racism? That was just an extra little tidbit the OP added to spice things up. Ridiculous.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Was this really a science experiment? She was mixing household chemicals in a plastic bottle on school property. It had nothing to do with her science class. It's more likely she got this stuff out of the janitor's closet or something like that. It sounds more like a kid being stupid rather than one experimenting.
Not that I agree with the penalty in any way. Detention or suspension would be ok here since no real harm came from it. It doesn't merit police involvement, or comparison to an accidental shooting.
Zero Tolerance means zero intelligence. Circumstances are always different. Thanks to our wonderful school and legal systems, there's less discretion. The bad and good part of discretion is bias. A straight-A good kid will be given the benefit of a doubt over a kid that has a reputation for being a troublemaker. On one hand, it's possibly a good rule of thumb... but it can lead to folks getting railroaded unfairly.
The "solution" then is to treat EVERYONE badly. I'm not that old, and my school had a policy of "both kids in a fight get punished." Didn't matter if you got jumped for being a geek with pacifist philosophy. OTOH, it was a learning experience about bureaucracy, government and pacifism. I dumped the pacifism, and the next kid that jumped me, I earned every ounce of my administrative punishment because I had no incentive NOT to do so. Zero tolerance and "everyone involved is equally guilty" is bunk, and a bad idea.
I clicked the link already angry at what I expected to find - a story about an ignorant, probably racist bureaucrat ruining a smart kid's life for no good reason.
But as someone who (as a kid) did more than my share of disruptive, loud, messy things, I can tell you that even before 9/11 and IEDs and "zero tolerance" doing this in a school bathroom would have resulted in punishment. This wasn't a classroom experiment - no teachers were aware of it - and, like it or not, Drano (or an equivalent toilet cleaner) is a pretty harsh chemical.
This won't be a popular post, but I don't think the story lives up to the headline.
This is simply stupid. And lazy on the part of the school, staff, and teachers.
Is there a reason they can't just talk to the girl and redirect her energy and curiosity to something beneficial?
An adult felony charge (not a conviction) will never come off of her record and always interfere with her ability
to seek the type of employment she may want in her future.
IMHO, her parents should push for a jury trial because I can pretty much guarantee the prosecutor(s) will push for
a guilty plea with probation and "threaten" her or her parents with jail time if they don't agree. Now, the jury should
find that the facts satisfy the legal requirements for a guilty verdict, but nullify the law in this case. This is the only
country in the world that has this legal system, but jurors are often intimidated as to their rights and responsibilities
under the law by the very judges that serve them (yes, in the U.S. the judge "works" for the jurors, but judges often
forget this minor fact).
If it we possible, the jurors should indict the arresting officer for terroristic threats against the girl, but that's wishful
thinking on my part...
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/05/florida_school_responds_to_cri.php?page=2
Sounds like the science teacher sold her our by claiming "NO WAY WAS WILMOT'S ACTIONS PART OF ANY CLASS WORK."
I still think criminal charges are overkill but expulsion from school for a few days is warranted. Unless it turns out the science teacher was just CYA and this really was some science project due in a few weeks and she wanted to show it off to friends first.
Sorry, but schools are run by bed wetting morons all over the country.
But you keep going with that shit because I believe we should clearly know who all the stupid fucking morons are.
The BB gun incident seems to have happened off of school property. If she did this at home the charges applied (explosives, dangerous toys, blah blah blah at school) would not have been applicable. The government's standard response with stuff involving schools and "danger" is "kill it with fire" to appease the parents who might freak out if something HAD happened and the few squeaky wheels who are such bed-wetters that they'll call into question the integrity, intelligence, etc. of people who "let this happen."
What next baking soda and vinegar gets a 6 months in juvie. Hydrogen filled balloons at least a year. Sodium your going down for life man. Please fire whatever school staff made this decision they are obviously incapable of rational thought, they claim it's a zero tolerance bs when the zero tolerance has a specific exception for scientific experiments.
I do really hope the judge dismisses the case with cause and send a nasty gram to the state bar.
No sir I dont like it.
Not many are saying that punishment isn't warranted. The problem is that the police were involved at all, that's the ridiculous part. Frankly if the police and DA have time to get involved in this sort of thing layoffs are long past due in this district.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
What experiment is this?
Sorry, I thought I had a reasonable science background in high school, but that was apparently too long ago for me to remember this experiment.
Can someone provide details? I'm a little cautious in having it show up in my Google history at the moment.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
...tells me that it is massively unlikely this was intellectual curiosity. Some kid thought it would be funny to make a huge bang at a place where huge bangs are known to cause massive administrative overreaction.
When I first read this, I thought it was horrible. One of the articles linked in the story here called it a botched experiment. What kind of loony racist throws the book so hard at a kid who messed up a project? Then I went looking for the "experiment" and learned there was pretty much definitely nothing botched about this. Youtube is full of works bombs, which is apparently what these are called. A popular chemistry blog I stumbled into explains these are actually illegal to make. And I really don't see what else you could do with these components.
Now, this kid certainly doesn't deserve to be tried as an adult for multiple felonies just because they made a total dipshit choice that hurt nobody. But what's going on here is just usual-business prosecutorial excess, not racism. Ruining dumb high school kids' lives is practically what these fuckers live for lately, regardless of skin tone.
Its exactly that kind of stuff that got me into chemistry in the first place
SURELY NOT!!!!!
No one is saying it's OK. We're saying it's not a felony. Make the kid clean up the mess and suspend her for a week. Problem solved.
Excessive criminalization is a much bigger threat to us all than kids with drano bombs.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
...does someone accidentally killing someone with a BB gun, and someone dissolving Al in TBC have to do with each other? I haven't read the article, and I won't read the article, but come on. I don't even care about the merits of each case. Slashdot, you're treading on thin ice.
How and where can I contribute to the legal costs for the family of this student? I want them to hire the best advocates money can provide, I want to see that judge humiliated for attempting to destroy the future of a curious student who made a mistake leading to an incident where no harm was either done or intended.
As a rule...mostly no.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
When you have zero tolerance policies then rightly or wrongly administrators and educators think they have no agency in the matter. Also educators don't have control of the police force they have welcomed into their own school. *DA's and AGs are political animals in "some" cases and this is just a stepping stone to bigger things so riding rough trod over people's lives will not be swayed.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
I see no mention in the article about a bathroom; it was outside near a gazebo and she stated that she was doing a science fair experiment.
-SaNo
Once again, proof as to why Florida is the only state that has it's own Fark tag or needs it.
My kid was showing me last night how to squeeze an empty water bottle hard enough to make the cap pop off. It made a good pop and sent the cap across the kitchen. If he does that at his school will he be arrested and charged with detonating an explosive device? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
No. Apparently they have charged rape suspects as Juveniles in that area, but a good student who hurt nobody will be tried as an adult??? It will never drop off her record. Freaking insane.
There is a petition to get the charges dropped and it has well over 10k signatures already:
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot?share_id=dFwlXuyxHk&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I thought people involved in educational process are better than this...
The teachers often are. The administrators, no. Most teachers care about the kids, while the administrators tend to be risk-averse bureaucrats who find it easier to hide behind a rule book than to make tough decisions.
It would have resulted in a *proportional* punishment. As a teenager I improvised something far more spectacular and got caught (it was kind of obvious who did it - enormous bang followed by four teenagers running away from the sound source just as a teacher left the chemistry block). I was shouted at and IIRC got a detention for it. No suspension. No life-ruining felony prosecution.
What this girl is getting is grossly and obscenely disproportionate. Even if she's acquitted of felony charges, it is grossly unjust that she was ever dragged through the court system for this.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
At least it wasn't "your an idiot".
It seems like it's about every other week that I read about a girl in Florida that blows up a soda bottle in school, a boy in Kentucky shooting his sister,
or (in the news earlier today) a farmer in the Philippines accidentally killing his daughter while cleaning his shotgun, then turning the gun on himself.
Stupidity knows no borders or colors, and we're all sadly affected with it.
What exactly is the non-racist explanation for that lack of proportionality?
Think "war on drugs" logic. This chemistry experiment ended up producing what is technically an improvised explosive device, and IEDs like this are a "gateway drug" of sorts to IEDs that terrorists have used within the past month to kill or maim dozens of people.
So, I take it, since this was at school, she had adult supervision, and she'd confirmed the safety precautions were carried out.
So why did the supervisor not say anything? I mean there was one, right? She wasn't just blowing shit up for kicks?
...idiot like a fox! Wait, that's not how that goes...
she stated that she was doing a science fair experiment
And you believe that claim because...?
(Not that I agree with the school & police reaction, but that doesn't mean I'm going to suspend criticism on either side)
I'm thinking it has more to do with a heightened public sensitivity to bomb-making in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing...
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I was far from a bad teenager. I loved science though and if it went bang that was all the better. Draino and aluminium foil? Jesus. I made fertiliser bombs. I synthesised Nitrogen triiodide and all manner of other fun compounds.
One bonfire night I once had a visit from the police due to my homemade titanium salutes. They were amused and told me not to blow my hands off. These days I'd go to jail for a million years.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.
You stop holding the rest of the South accountable for Florida, and we'll forgive you for New Jersey.
Most of Florida is not "The South." Anyone here who lives in an urban or suburban area is more likely a transplant from New York than a "Southerner."
Yes, you have nailed it. It's not racism, it's Zero Tolerance. It provides a theoretical way for the schools to enforce discipline and standards on all the students by setting out a policy and making no exceptions to it. The only problem is that life doesn't work that way. For example, it's one thing to shoot your ex-spouse just because they made you angry and something else entirely for a policeman to shoot an armed robber at a bank who is holding hostages and threatening them. Zero Tolerance in those circumstances would require the policeman to be charged with a crime because he "killed someone". To me, this is just symptomatic of how American schools have failed and continue to fail. Zero Tolerance is the answer for everything. Just this week, a principal in (I think) Kansas City had to apologize because he refused to allow a student's solder brother to escort her to her prom because he was "too old" (he was 21). They had a rule that established a cutoff age for non-student escorts, and he was above that age. The only problem was this decision went viral and thousands of people gave the principal and the school district hell about this for "dishonoring an American hero" and the superintendent of the district made the principal apologize to the soldier and the policy will be changed to allow exceptions. But that's how America has decided to handle everything in the schools - These are our rules and they can't be changed. No exceptions. Oh your kids need to learn? Sorry, our business is enforcing the rules.
I once mixed ammonia and bleach on school property as an undergrad, just to see what would happen. That's called curiosity.
To say it wasn't a science experiment because it "had nothing to do with my science class" is to undercut what education is all about - making you curious enough to try stuff on your own.
I think you may be missing the point of condemning racism if you find it acceptable to casually condemn an entire region as being of similar mind. That said, the south wouldn't have as much trouble with racism as it does, if it weren't for the pervasive denial of racist things as racist. So don't take my post as defending that.
I've seen this news elsewhere and Slashdot was the first place to call it a science experiment. I guess it could be, in the same sense as a Diet Coke & Mentos experiment or an "effects of flour on your best friend's head" experiment.
What's being done to her is completely ridiculous and she deserves nothing more than maybe a nasty look and a mild talking-to, but let's not stoop to yellow geek journalism
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
My now 17 year old Son was expelled from high school two years ago for... get this... popping a regular old helium balloon. He was charged with Disorderly Conduct (the catch-all "when we want to charge you with something" summary crime in Pennsylvania) but we managed to get that dismissed at the Magisterial District Court after about $15,000 in legal fees, most of which was spent trying to obtain school surveillance video showing that the balloon popped when he leaned up against a wall, pinching the balloon between his backpack and the wall, causing it to pop.
We've home-schooled him since then. It's truly amazing how absolutely brain-dead our government has become. It really does destroy everything it touches, including the education system.
As the saying goes, "zero tolerance = zero common sense"
Florida's as much of the South as New York
This won't be a popular post
Damn straight. You can't just come in here waggling the truth in our faces like Jack the Biscuit. Where do you people get off?!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So, sorry kids. Don't try any extracurricular science projects on school grounds, especially if they could result in anything resembling an explosion.
It sounds like the article is trying to be sarcastic, but that seems like perfectly reasonable advice to me.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
This is the same state who voted an African American for President, clearly Florida is just a...ummm...never mind.
Fixed.
Of course the next thing you know the Police in all the major FL cities will start stopping and frisking blacks at random like that great bastion of liberties, New York City.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Punishment yes.
Suspension yes.
Expulsion? maybe... if there's an existing history to think about.
Felony charges? No. Just... no.
On the other hand I think she deserves a scholarship, and that the case for giving her a scholarship increases the longer and more extreme the authorities hound her. I hope there are Universities out there farsighted enough to recognize that the lynch mob (the one you've regrettably decided to join) is exceptionally damaging to the cause of education and learning, especially when on the surface at least it does appear to have the hallmarks of racial and sexual discrimination.
If you get your way, the only way to undo the damage is for others to come forward and pro-actively reward her for her actions.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This has nothing to do with religion. This is the fault of so-called "educators." They have become thoughtless, lazy, and self centered. Don't think so? They pass these so-called zero tolerance policies and blindly enforce them. It lets them discipline anyone for the slightest infraction so that they don't have to deal with the real issue of discipline within their own classrooms. It's far easier, from a teacher's perspective, to get a kid suspended or expelled rather than having to deal with discipline and the child's parents. In my school district, these zero tolerance policies are used in to go after the really bad kids instead of instead of going after them for the real issues. The attitude of most teachers and administrators is that so what if an innocent kid gets caught up in the rules, rules are rules. It's just easier to follow the rules than it is to enforce the spirit of them. It's amazing that educators just aren't thinking.
I think it's great that some teachers spoke up for this kid, but the union and the board should do this as well.
I also blame parents, but the parents of this kid are the problem. IT's the problem kids that have the loudest screaming parents only because if their kid gets suspended they have to take vacations days to watch them.
Honestly, I can't stand the way we treat kids today. We say they're important and then do everything we can to show them they aren't.
I've had several cases where I needed to deal with public school administrators in a few places around the country. Usually it was computer security issues such as kids doing bad things from the school, or things like school machines infected and sending out spam. Similar kinds of things happen from businesses and universities a lot more because there are more of those around. But I can tell you that a much much higher percentage of the public school administrators are just plain totally incompetent, not just about computers and networks, but just about everything they do, including communicating in English. These people are so stupid in general (a few exceptions exist) I have to call them a totally separate breed. That's how bad it is. I would characterize half of them as wanna-be-politicians who just could not cut the rough and tumble world of dealing with adults who can fight back.
When I actually was in school, I noticed a few administrators were actually good people. Most went on to other jobs elsewhere (probably because they could not deal with the stupidity above them). One later got elected to Congress. The stupid ones stayed where they were.
The teachers, however, were almost all very good people. One friend I met in college who went through teach education graduating at the top of his class and earning other awards, ended up quitting from education after 5 years simply because he could not stand the bureaucratic BS from stupid people.
I thought people involved in educational process are better than this...
A few are. Gotta look hard to find them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a rule...mostly no.
You went to a better school than I did if you can honestly say 'mostly no'. In my UK school race was the overriding consideration in just about everything and all it did was fuel more racism.
Racism is still alive and well but it's a far more complex issue than simply white people believing they have to make up for past crimes to black people. It's become a self-perpetuating cluster-fuck of resentment on all sides.
I think you may be missing the point of condemning racism if you find it acceptable to casually condemn an entire region as being of similar mind.
Exactly, and that goes on a lot, even among otherwise intelligent people. "That *large diverse group* is so bigoted!"
Not only are comments like that repulsive because of their innate stupidity, they're harmful because they are recasting the basic elements of racism and bigotry in a more socially tolerable guise, against a group that the poster feels it's OK to condemn based on stereotypes.
And I'm not from the south, so this isn't defensiveness. It's irritation. Just think about what you say.
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
It's sodium hydroxide which is basic, not acidic. Yes, it turns the fats in your body to soap, and is a very effective way to melt down a body, but the process is very slow.
As someone who has had an experiment of this very nature go haywire in my face I know from first hand experience that it's very unpleasant. But...please don't try to make out that the solution will melt someone's skin off in front of their eyes, the victim will have plenty and plenty of time to get water on the burn to dilute and remove the hydroxide. In the eyes won't be some easy, but I would be highly surprised if someone lost their vision provided they reacted in any kind of normal way: "holy shit, my eyes sting like living hell, I'd better wash them out with water *immediately*!!!"
Yes, an explosion in the face won't be good, but again, for a hydrogen explosion like this to do any real damage to life or property it has to be in a confined space and produce a lot of gas. In the open air you would have to make a monsterous amount of gas, and even then we'd be talking about a mild concussion and possibly ear-drum damage.
Anyway, the point of my response is to try and provide some rational perspective of the true *danger* and *risk* involved here.
I bet it would be lye going in all directions, but the net result is the same... But if this rates as a felony, then I'm probably on the terrorrist list of the USA...
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.
Florida?! But that's America's wang!
Dark Reflection
Zero tolerance == guilty until proven innocent.
You know, the way our legal system works now.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Gallagher said in one of his specials:
"I like the shape of Florida. It looks like we're pissing on Cuba."
Perhaps it was the only time Gallagher has ever been funny.
The principal seemed to understand what happened and didn't think it was a big deal. From the articles posted it seems to me that it was the School Resource Officer that made the call to turn this into a criminal matter, which makes sense as these officers face the same pressure as other LEOs to make arrests and "justify their existence".
This is why cops need not be stationed in schools.
It's worse than that, they disqualified 50,000 black people from voting by using an intentionally broad filter do disqualify ex-felons (who can't vote in Florida and a few other Southern states). They had a list of ex-felons that listed little information about them, but did list their race. If a black guy named John Smith once committed a felony in Florida and you were a black guy named John Smith you'd likely be disqualified from voting (with no advance notice that would let you challenge it). Never mind checking for little details, like the two John Smith's being born thirty years apart. The company doing the work warned about this lacking of checking, but the State of Florida told them not to refine it.
However I can see the same thing happening in up where "All dose Yankees live" It is part of the dumbing down of our system of discipline.
Our system has been so intent of getting the bad guys that they are willing to let hundreds of innocent people go to jail vs letting one real criminal go free.
We spend more time trying to find ways to get kids kicked out of school and or locked up in prison. Then we do trying to keep kids in school and out of prison. We are all humans and we make mistakes. If we don't make mistakes, we don't learn from them. Does that mean that there are no consequences, no. They are consequences but they don't mean permanent marks on your life for getting caught for making a simple mistake.
For this teen, It probably should have lead to Detention, or perhaps up to a week suspension, because setting off unsupervised explosions (even small ones) is wrong. But being that didn't cause any damage, or was meant to the punishment should face that fact.
Her biggest mistake was that she wasn't a big football player, if that was the case she would have gone off with a kids will be kids and ignored.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There is no evidence this has anything to do with religion, and you know it. Your vile attempt to inject your pet cause into this important issue is disrespectful to the student and doesn't serve anyone except yourself.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Those bombs are fucking dangerous - when they go off, you have acid going in all directions - yeah, you might not kill people, but it will take your eyes out...
To be pedantic you have boiling concentrated caustic soda (also known as lye or caustic soda), a very strong and dangerous alkali, splashing all over the place. The vigorous reaction with aluminium gives off hydrogen as well as heating the solution to boiling point. When I was at school that sort of thing would have got you a suspension, but I think that with today's safety culture an expulsion could be on the cards.
"Zero Tolerance means zero intelligence."
this
Country? Try continent... Canadian schools are run by some colossal morons too...
BB guns will also take your eyes out.
I'm a non-anonymous Southerner, and I can agree that while it's probably not quite as bad as people elsewhere believe it is, we've still not quite escaped our past. Things are getting better generally (look back at the 1960s and 1970s and you will see that is factual), but yes, things like this at the very least give the appearance of a socially backwards society. A friend of mine from NYC once told me, "I thought I had seen racism. Then I came to college here."
If you abhor racism, the very fact that it is stronger here than in many places is a reason to STAY - I can be an active voice against it.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Your last line is spot on.
Zero tolerance policies are for zero brained educators.
According to the incident report, "Mr. Durham advised Kiera told him she was conducting a science fair experiment... Wilmot advised she did not know what would happen when she mixed the ingredients. Wilmot advised she thought it would just cause some smoke." There were no injuries, no damage, not even clear intent. Where is the felony crime here? It's only in the mind of Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Can I play, too? What if it involved PLUTONIUM?!
No it wasn't, this experiment was done outside. The police report clearly states this if you had bothered to read. When I was a kid I did the same thing with dry ice and water as well as vinegar and baking soda. Water and baking powder were also interesting but pretty weak. Friends did all sorts of stuff with powdered iodine. All of us turned out just fine, we didn't have our lives ruined or curiosity killed. My teachers wouldn't have allowed me to do this but they might have demonstrated the reaction to our class as they did many other things. We're destroying our kids...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
you're right. she should have said it was for her religion.
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
How does a kid being bullied not count as assault? Certainly when I was at school there was a lot of bullying going on and the school simply didn't care (even when people inevitably ended up injured). Whilst I'll agree that the first port of call should be for it to be handled internally in the school, if that doesn't work shouldn't the police be involved if only for the protection of the kids on the receiving end?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
1) this wasn't a science fair experiment. The science teacher said this had nothing to do with classwork - she was just screwing around.
2) the 'draino bomb' hardly makes "a little pop, and a little smoke" (nice job of displaying one's bias on the part of the reporter, though). Any sort of pressure in a sealed vessel can explode with nasty consequences, and drain-o is no cheery substance to be splashed with either. As a "smart" student, she should have understood that too.
And you know what, it's not a binary thing:
She WAS an idiot AND The school administration are dicks for expelling her.
BOTH can be simultaneously true.
(That said, I'm really f*cking sick of school admins hiding behind the 'no tolerance' nonsense. You morons are paid well to MAKE DECISIONS, it doesn't take any brainpower to follow a chain of if-then statements blindly.)
I certainly see justification for suspension for a few days, but not expulsion.
If she's that good a student as portrayed, suspension will be enough.
-Styopa
Wow that is kind of appalling.
While many fellow /.ers enjoy debating race, gun, IED, I would like to stress a couple of facts:
1) Can someone bring guns to school and practice shooting?
Even it is a scientific experiment, there must be certain conditions to limit the scope / location / time that the experiment should be performed.
2) BB Gun accident happened in their home.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/article/304429/8/POLK-10-year-old-shot-in-the-head-with-BB-gun
Their mom was preparing food.
Moderators, could you please add information to your original post? It will help discussion.
^(oo)^pig~
I thought people involved in educational process are better than this...
The teachers often are. The administrators, no. Most teachers care about the kids, while the administrators tend to be risk-averse bureaucrats who find it easier to hide behind a rule book than to make tough decisions.
Time to let out some of my pent up resentment about the UK school system under that satan-incarnate Thatcher.
When I was at school not one teacher 'cared' about me in any sense whatsoever, they didn't even pretend to care. School was a punishment to be endured and it was made absolutely clear that any attempt to educate myself or to simply entertain myself would not be tolerated and that being white was something I should be very, very guilty of because of all those black slaves I personally oppressed. The only thing they didn't seem to care about was when I stopped turning up for a few months, one less kid to worry about I guess. They didn't teach the syllabus or allow me a copy of it so I could teach myself so I screwed up all the exams that I could have easily passed.
Also potato fries every day. No wonder I had a weight problem when all lunch options included deep fried potato every single day.
Maybe you went to a good school but in my case the teachers didn't care, the administrators were never seen, and there was nobody else anywhere who gave a dam if I lived or died.
We say they're important and then do everything we can to show them they aren't.
That's a good definition of bureaucracy, and what are public schools other than bureaucracies aimed at the parent-children demographics?
Parents who think their children are important do all they can to make it so. Up to and including, on worst case scenarios, learning enough to be able to teach their kids themselves. But it'd be better if they joined forces to get an actually good *and* cheap private school system going rather than doing things individually. Vote with your wallet, not matter how small it is, to get the good teachers from those fucked up government schools to leave them and start working for you at a place that actually values the fact they're good teachers, not good bureaucrats.
When people want they have the power to make right what's wrong. And many times making right requires parallel thinking. Going into the public school system should be always the absolute last resort. In every other instance people should always prefer that which they actually control.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
I agree completely.
Polk County School's justification for expullsion was (from TFA)
Anytime a student makes a bad choice it is disappointing to us. We urge our parents to join us in conveying the message that there are consequences to actions.
Yes, Polk County School, I think the 16-year-old understands what the general concept of punishment is and that actions have consequences. I don't see how they're going to be able to explain why a small explosion that produced as much force as any other gas reaction in a sealed bottle deserves expulsion, a felony charge, and being tried as an adult.
This one comment on TFA also seems appropriate:
User: [ideasrule]
Guys and girls, we should be engaging in activism instead of just posting comments! I've collected the sites and emails offered by other users into one place:
Change.org petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot
Police department complaint form: http://www.cityofbartow.net/index.aspx?recordid=103&page=18
School superintendent: john.stewart@polk-fl.net
School principal: Ronald.Pritchard@polk-fl.net
The other email someone offered, lbryan.pd@cityofbartow.net, is of "Crime Prevention Practioner" Lyn Bryan and it doesn't work (my email was blocked).
Remember that the school principal is a reasonable person who rightly thinks the girl didn't intend any harm, so we should be supportive of him.
I've seen conflicting accounts on this, but the location was NOT in a fume hood, in a science classroom, with a teacher.
The fact that you "turned out fine" is subject to debate. However, you could easily have lost an eye or suffered other serious injuries.
AND if you had bothered to read my post, you would have seen that I suggested that the teacher demonstrate a safer version of this kind of reaction.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
As Malcolm X said, "Don't talk to me about the South. The South starts at the Canadian border." Google "stop and frisk New York City" for further evidence. Any other attitude is liberal smugness.
What is worse is that this article [http://www.theledger.com/article/20130423/NEWS/304235005] has published the girl's full name and complete address. Despite this apparently being legal to do in Florida, the reporter is being reckless. It adds no value to the article and does endanger this minor and her family.
Here is the writer's email if you wish make any suggestions.
suzie.schottelkotte@theledger.com
The problem is that "you didn't suspend/expel/charge A for doing this so you can't charge B" is the main defense in school misbehavior cases, so letting someone getting away with making a bomb "because no one was hurt" isn't going to fly. This is not a case of some first grader having unauthorized scissors, this is someone getting lucky that no one was seriously hurt. It was done on school property, while kids were present, so they can't sweep it under the rug. Now, the felony charge is a different matter, but again, the question is are they going to try to make it stick? Or is it just an opening salvo in pleading it to a misdemeanor, to be taken off the record after graduation? I wait for the end of the story before coming to a judgement there.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
a few hundred years ago you could still be executed for science.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You're an idiot.
Spoken, no doubt, by an anonymous coward from Dixie who just can't come to grips with the extent that racism still pervades The South. No, the idiots are the officials who are making this chickenshit case and ruining a young woman's life.
Oh, please. I have brown skin living in South Carolina, and have never encountered any racism. I had to take a trip to New Jersey to have that experience for the first time (although I will say even in New Jersey it's atypical, I go there often and never have any problems). The United States really doesn't have much a problem with racism when you compare it to someplace like Europe, where you can attend a soccer game and start hearing racist chants against non-white players from the crowd. Have you ever been to a sports game and seen this happen in the US?
This is more a case of the stupidity that takes over a population every time we see a terrorist attack. When 9/11 happened, airport security started freaking out over engineering students carrying circuit boards (because exposed wires must mean it's a bomb or something). Now we had the Boston bombing and a minor explosion as a result of an accident of curiosity which doesn't actually hurt anyone is going to cause an overreaction. Right now, in so short a time after Boston, a white student would have gotten the same treatment.
Lets suppose for the sake of argument that I would blame the teachers if this child had blown herself up. Does it follow from that that the only reasonable response is to charge this child with felonies?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They really have toned down science in schools if this sort of thing gets you in trouble. My Chemistry teacher sent me home with a soda bottle of liquid nitrogen. Granted, none of it made it home, because he knew how far I had to walk and how fast it would evaporate, but the point remains.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
This stupid country is producing a generation of stupid kids, cowering and fearing the government, doing only as told.
I see the same in Europe. Kids these days are compliant drones scared of offending their masters or they fight back, join gangs, and commit stupid crimes. Either way it's out of balance and far from healthy.
Yes, but the school is supposed to be the a source of wisdom and knowledge for developing adults. Instead of being the voice of reason that acknowledges and points out the heightened sensitivity to the child (and yes, a 16-year-old is still very much a child when it comes to making non-malicious mistakes like this), and teaches her to exercise better judgement, the school system is teaching her that if her curiosity leads her to accidentally crossing the line on what will freak out parents, the who system will come down on her and try to throw the book at her.
Although, after reading what I just wrote, that's probably a pretty accurate and depressing lesson of our current paranoid state. Still, I don't think kids should be subjected to such treatment.
He's not accusing all of them, just those that run a chunk of the legal system - so the racism among "the officials who are making this chickenshit case".
What if her "science experiment" involved a pressure cooker?
What if it involved a home made nuke? It didn't so it's a pointless question.
I think it depends on whether you are characterizing Southerners as racist or The South. To my mind, one is a large swath of people that have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs. The other is a historical political/social culture that still has an influence on modern institutions in regions where it was most pervasive at its height. And that political/social culture undeniably has some roots that were planted in racism. Which makes it tricky to distinguish, in modern institutions, what occurs because of the normal stupidity that everywhere is subject to, and what occurs because of the influence of those historical roots.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
The only reason the people there got behind someone like Castro is because US owned interests were pissing on Cuba.
I am fed up with people who do not know basic statistics and who want falsely "protect" groups.
It is ok to condemn groups. Speaking of groups or stereotypes is equivalent to stating group statistics.
Stereotypes is what makes us reason about groups.
A stereotype is a bad name given to group statistics. There is nothing bad about stereotypes.
What is wrong is to assume an individual represents a group. Thus assuming that group statistics apply to the individual.
This is discrimination. That's what you should be looking out for.
All statements regarding groups are statistical in nature.
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.You stop holding the rest of the South accountable for Florida, and we'll forgive you for New Jersey.
"Forgiving" New Jersey isn't charitable, it's insane.
But because she looks like a mooslim terrorist! No politician gets into trouble putting "those terrorist people" in jail after a terror attack.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
FloridaMan truly is a super hero for the internet age. It's only a matter of time before he gets his own reality show.
"Watch your cornhole, bud."
I could agree with you if you replaced most instances of "educators" with "administrators"; teachers generally aren't the ones setting these policies. It's school boards and, more often, politicians. As you note, and as the article says: it's teachers who are sticking up for this kid. And the only people who stand to benefit from this are politicians making hay with the baser elements of their base.
And I'm not from the south, so this isn't defensiveness. It's irritation. Just think about what you say.
I spent five years living in Montgomery, Ala., before I finally escaped. That "large diverse group"? Not so diverse, actually.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
There are more and more stories like this one. It seems that US overgrown prison system has run out of suspects to jail, so they're now after anyone. Lots of Americans deny it but reality seems to be more cruel than beurocracy/stupidity/paranoia of those in power. This is for-profit cruelty instigated on US citizens by US corporations (as opposed to opressing 3-rd world citizen for profits in the past). You're being harvested by corporate prison complex installed by Bush senior in Reagan years. Sadly, this process seems to be advancing: people are being jailed for more and more trivial things and corporations operating this scheme are now profiteering on prisoners' work - which effectively converts US prisons into US prison camps and makes even more incentives to lobby/bribe officials to jail even more souls. In its way, US corporate economy found a way to compete with China prison camps or Burma prison camps - I'm sorry for if it looks cynic but it is what it is.
South of the Mason-Dixon line. Need we know more?
Actually, yes. You need to know that there are really three Floridas. The Panhandle is part of the Deep South, but South Florida is basically part of the Caribbean. In-between is Disney World and the lost 13th Canadian colony.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Which is why where I live the people running the schools are qualified and experienced teachers that don't stay inside their office instead of what your country/area is stuck with. That cuts down on a lot of the "only in America" stupidity that gets in the press. Calling in the police for something like this would be seen as a failure and a way to stop any furthur career advancement.
I don't disagree...just pointing out that an irrationality other than racism is probably to blame.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Science no. Stupid yes.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
From North Carolina:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9087003
"David "Cole" Withrow is a Princeton High School honors student who was arrested Monday and charged with a felony for having a shotgun in his truck in the school parking lot."
The reporter didn't bother to dig up any past incidents involving a black teenager. She did discover that school administrators have committed the same "crime" and were never charged.
The idiocy isn't unique to Florida.
I've personally encountered a lot of bigotry in the south. Am I not allowed to say so, or to notice?
I've encountered bigotry in the north and in the south. I know it can be hard for anyone not a white male to get a job at a small business. It is also difficult for anyone who IS a white male to get a job at a large company. It works both ways. As long as we enforce quotas and give preference to a group, no matter who the group is, that is racism.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The irony is palpable. Zero tolerance rules were instituted because application of penalties was uneven. So for example, a black student doing science experiments would get a felony charge whereas a white student who kills a sibling is not charged. So what do we have here? We have people complaining the application of penalties from the prosecutor are uneven AND complaining that zero tolerance from the school is wrong. It's like people flipping a coin and getting upset with heads or tails.
You forgot the worst part of zero tolerance: that the lesson schools are teaching to kids is that heavy-handed, inflexible rules and imposing authority is normal. The next generation isn't going to overturn the patriot act or roll back arbitrary and secret no fly lists, or demand that the government abide by the constitution because they will be used to having absolutely no rights, save what the authority lets them have.
I don't know if it will actually turn out that way, I had it drilled into me up through high school that marijuana was basically heroin, that condoms didn't work, that premarital sex would destroy my life, that God hates both of those things and that homosexuality is evil. Granted, I hate being high, was unsuccessful in most attempts to get laid, and am not gay, but none of that was due to what they told me in classes. Moreover I'm agnostic now. So hopefully zero tolerance will have an opposite effect and get kids to realize from an early age that they MUST fight for their rights. Still, I'd rather us not run that experiment. If when I'm an old man, I have to submit to a prostate check every time I get on a hoverbus because these youngsters were trained with zero tolerance not to question authority, I'm gonna be pissed.
Its also an issue of authoritarianism. They cannot and will not go against the mandates of their written code of conduct. Because of terrorism. Its all about the bomb and setting an example.
In effect these crazy shits of educators think its more important to make an example out of a student then to educate one. This is actually nothing new. They just got ammunition to take it to a whole new level. I hope they loose their jobs and potentially face lawsuits or jail time for harassment if they don't back down.
The girl wanted to find out what happens if she mixes aluminum and drain cleaner. Her findings: under the experimental conditions (unsupervised, on school property, post-9/11), there is a fizz and a bang, a bunch of adults overreact, and you get charged with a felony. :-(
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I agree, charging her as an adult is completely off the wall. This is exactly the kind of thing that the juvenile justice system is built for - a kid is accused of breaking a law (perhaps one that, as gp mentions, we are hyper-sensitive to after the Boston marathon, but a law nevertheless). The government has an interest in enforcing that law and, if the person is found guilty, punishing that individual.
But we, as a society, accept that kids can't always recognize the consequences of their actions and have developed a separate system of justice that, when they make the kind of mistakes that kids are wont to make (such as mixing chemicals inappropriately), we are able to show mercy in our choice of punishment, and then seal the records to make sure that one childhood mistake doesn't follow her for the rest of her life.
Sadly it starts a little further north then the border. Recently heard a couple of articles on racism in New Brunswick, towns where lots of slaves escaped to, and it didn't sound much different then the deep south.
Here in BC we don't have many Black Americans so the racism has traditionally been against the Chinese, East Indians and Native people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I think you may be missing the point of condemning racism if you find it acceptable to casually condemn an entire region as being of similar mind
So you wouldn't characterise, just for the sake of argument, 1930s Germany as racist?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As opposed to the kid who shot and killed his sister with BB gun. Nice one moron.
But as someone who (as a kid) did more than my share of disruptive, loud, messy things, I can tell you that even before 9/11 and IEDs and "zero tolerance" doing this in a school bathroom would have resulted in punishment.
This isn't about whether or not she should have been punished. Making a Drano bomb was wrong, and making it on school property was even wronger. Her actions definitely merited disciplinary action.
The issue here is the proportionality of it all. Did the punishment fit the crime? Personally, I believe that the punishment was insanely excessive. Beyond all common sense. If it were my call to make, I would have given her a 1 week school suspension, required her to write a written apology to the classmates who were in the area for putting them in danger, and required her to write a report on the safe handling of household chemicals.
Do you really think that you should today still have to answer for all of the stupid shit that you did when you were a teenager? I wouldn't want to live in such a world, either. But that's what's being done to this kid. I don't give a shit what sex she was, what color she was, or about any of the other distractions in the summary. Wrong is wrong, and that transcends everything. What's being done to this kid is wrong.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Which of course is why I suspect that racism is behind this. In my experience, New Yorkers are more likely to be racist than Southerners.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
My immediate response to this item was to wonder whether the student in question was a constant annoyance to the teachers and administrators. The original article makes it clear that she is a model student: "Kiera Wilmot got good grades and had a perfect behavior record. She wasn't the kind of kid you'd expect to find hauled away in handcuffs and expelled from school, but that's exactly what happened after an attempt at a science project went horribly wrong."
That additional information (which really should have been in Slashdot's summary, as it was properly used in the reporter's lede) makes it clear that the student is being wronged. Whether she is being wronged as a result of racism or as a result of the inherent stupidity of zero-tolerance policies (policies from which exceptions are often made for the children of the wealthy and/or powerful) remains to be determined. Perhaps both are involved.
This is a teachable moment for the school. It is an opportunity for students and faculty together to examine the nature of fairness and the nature of bureaucracy. I hope there are some tenured faculty members at the school who are interested in making good use of the opportunity.
My own suspicion is that the administrators should be fired, but I think that way about a great many administrators.
For this teen, It probably should have lead to Detention, or perhaps up to a week suspension, because setting off unsupervised explosions (even small ones) is wrong. But being that didn't cause any damage, or was meant to the punishment should face that fact.
No, she didn't do anything wrong at all. If anyone should be in trouble, it is whoever was in charge of vetting the experiments which would be allowed into the fair. If they allowed her to perform the experiment, and she did, then how can she be blamed?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It is also difficult for anyone who IS a white male to get a job at a large company
Yes, it's a well known fact (*) that all the senior posts in large Western companies are held by disabled black lesbians, isn't it?
(*) Amongst those with a totally distorted view of reality.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I do think the race issue is worth discussing. As well as the gender issue.
But there's something more fundamental and less likely to stoke passions at play here:
DOING SCIENCE IS ABOUT MAKING MISTAKES. Her "punishment" should be to write a paper on what she was trying to do and why the results were not what she expected. Simple, end of story.
There should be no real punishment of any kind, much less the over the top expulsion and arrest.
The simple fact is that she should be encouraged to make mistakes, not punished for them. And the most basic problem we are dealing with is that our school systems don't understand this fact.
He douche bag. The prosecutor in the BB gun case used the excuse that it was an accident not to prosecute. But claimed the science experiment wasn't an accident. Do the math moron....
Ooooooooooooooo.k.
It's not *that* risky, though, is it? You can break a leg running. Happens to kids playing soccer all the time. Balls can smash through windows, shattering glass on screaming children and causing a cut. Also happens. Not sure it needs expulsion to manage it, however.
Risk = severity * frequency. And severity isn't that high, and the frequency isn't that high either.
it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT
I have a friend w/ an autistic 6 y.o. son. One day he committed the destructive and threatening act of shaking a book case. They called the police. Understandably the police respond quickly when a school calls, but I can imagine the response of the three officers when they arrived. Apparently one of the hazards of being a police officer these days is pissing your uniform because you're laughing so hard at some of the calls you have to respond to.
I've seen overblown punishment before in many cases, for example a few weeks ago a student being expelled and then arrested for wearing an NRA shirt. When I was in school, nobody would have made a second thought about it. Really really disproportionate reaction.
That said, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that this is race related. Is the punishment overblown? Yes. I'd say expulsion should be fine considering how dangerous it is to make an explosive that releases caustic liquids. However a criminal record is stupid. I guarantee you that each one of these cops, teachers, and prosecutors have set off a bottle rocket or made a dry ice grenade when they were a teenager, and the world didn't end.
Anyways, lesson learned, now you have to go to a new school. Is race why it is overblown though? In my opinion, not a chance.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
You can extend that to all Americas for a start. I'm still waiting for evidence that this isn't a worldwide phenomenum.
Rethinking email
Remind me, who said the following about whom?
"Cheese eating surrender monkeys"
If you had god damned ara^H^H^Hcabbies trying to run you down all the time, you'd be racist too!!
DISCLOSURE: Neither racist nor from NY.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Why would the world health organization be involved in this?
Oh, please. I have brown skin living in South Carolina, and have never encountered any racism.
That's nice for you. In other news, the US has a black President, and recently had a female Secretary of State, so obviously there's neither racism nor sexism anywhere in the country.
Truly, America is a land of wonders.
Pretty much, yes.
I'm not saying racism and sexism doesn't exist. But if it's possible for people of all races and genders to live their lives without discrimination, then we, as a society, don't have a racism problem. Not having a racism problem doesn't mean that you're never going to encounter discrimination every once in a while. It means those cases of discrimination are due to individual fuckwads. In the same way that there will always be morons who think killing people watching a marathon is a good idea, or shooting up an elementary school fool of kids is a good idea. Individual fuckwads will always exist, but as long as their actions isn't met with acceptance and encouragement from our society, it's not a problem with our society.
seems everyone needs to RTFA: "The assistant principal called police after talking to Wilmot's science teacher and determining he didn't know about the experiment."
assistant principal hears explosion, sees smoke, runs over and student claims "bomb" is science experiment. Seems reasonable, but teacher knows nothing about it. Of course expell student and possibly charge with crime, after all the things that have been going on recently at schools the school would be neglectful if they didn't expell student and call the police. Would a student be expelled and police notified for bringing a "harmless" BB gun to school or firecrackers? Of course, so should this student. But I'm a little perplexed why skin color was brought into this, or why a story of an accidental death has anything to do with this. People die all the time accidentally and it is not always a crime. Seems submitter is focused on racism rather than just looking at what happened and determining if punishment fit the crime.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Things are not unidimensional. In many countries we have had the right-wing parties demand greater state powers. All Synarchist (that means, the semantic opposite to anarchism, literally means "with a government") parties were right-wing, and mixed economics and social morals on the same bowl. Fascists are also right-wing, and they defend the state overseeing basically all aspects of societal life.
On the other hand, anarchist movements have almost always been related with left-wing sympathies. Left-wing does not necessarily mean "Stalin-style soviet-controlled society" â" In fact, socially, the Stalinist rule was quite a right-wing one.
But the difference is, in this day and age, and after recent bombings, mixing random things together at the advice of your friend is really really stupid.
In other words: teenager victim of mass hysteria. I guess the same was true of the Salem witch trials. I can only hope that when my kids get to be teenagers, this is the stupidest thing they do.
That's how you get people "innocently" making real bombs and killing real people.
Right. Same goes for Diet Coke and Mentos. Anything less than felony charges and next they'll be stocking up on plutonium.
+1 for stereotyping the northern folk while standing up against racism
Suppose that she had been a he, had been white, had been the star quarterback and was expelled and charged as an adult for exactly the same act.
No one would say it was about race or anything else of that sort. Would that make it any less outrageous?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
America, the land of no more freedom.
send her to Juvenille detention if you have to
Juvie? Even that's a nice way to turn a teenager who did a dumb thing, but caused and meant no harm, down the wrong road. The punishment shouldn't cause more harm than the offense. And they're giving her permanent expulsion, not a temporary suspension. Is it their goal to turn today's teenagers into tomorrow's deadbeats and criminals?
In my first year at college, I pushed a friend (by accident) through a plate glass window. The college authorities fined me £50 and asked me to be more careful. [friend] was taken to hospital, lost a small slice of an ear IIRC but was otherwise ok.
We were sitting in the college bar, pretty drunk, and there were these thick radiators that ran along the windows which people sat on. [friend] had slid down between the radiator and the plate glass (10' x 10') window, and I thought it'd be a fine idea to get him stuck down there, so pushed him down as hard as I could...
Plate glass windows make a lot of noise when they break...
I do remember grabbing hold of him and pulling him back as soon as it happened, which may be why he still talks to me :) It may also be why he didn't get a sheet of glass through his neck, Exorcist-style.
The dean in charge of my hall-of-residence was particularly scathing when he found out I was studying physics at the time, various comments about the fragility of glass were made, but his (and the college's) attitude was "shit happens around students". The fine was their way of saying "don't be a dick, again".
Of course, this was the UK, not the US. I also wrote a networked virus without ending up in jail...
Physicists get Hadrons!
This is just a kid screwing around with a common noisemaker, its not a felony, and its a lot easier to clean up than some diet coke and mentos.
Bottles.
This isn't a case of someone doing science. It is a case of someone recklessly mixing chemicals.
The only difference between "Science" and "Recklessly mixing chemicals" is whether or not you take notes and share your results after you're done.
Here here! In Arkansas -most- folks generally get along pretty well. Instances of racism are encountered occasionally... but rarely in my experience (I'm pretty pale-skinned). In any event, although pockets of racism may be found in a wide-spread geographic distribution, one doesn't generally find institutional-type discrimination anymore here in the 'South'... You'll run into an occasional crack-pot (of any color) here or there... but I've personally encountered a seemingly - alarmingly - high incidence of racist white folks up north. Once on a business trip with a black co-worker of mine, we even encountered somebody who, apparently, had never met a black person face-to-face before. So, I'm quite disappointed when I hear people - who likely live in the North - make disparaging remarks of how racist white people in the south are.
It's also important to note - there are many geographic regions here in the South where a white person is the minority... I've been to many of those places in my travels. Some of them are the most welcoming environments I've ever visited... Other places, I'll walk into a gas station, restaurant, or what have you... and all of the black folks just stare at me. So, it goes both ways... Your mileage may vary, however, depending on where you go. :-)
I'm calling *BULLSHIT* on you. I was born in South Carolina and maybe 90% of my family still lives there. For you to say you've *never* seen racism makes you a statistical anomaly far on the tail end of the curve (unless you just stepped off a bus from the North to blog). Even if you're White, you're going to hear comments from people in "safe" company. Racism just doesn't *exist* in the South, it's institutional. It's baked into the culture like apple pie and Memorial Day sales. Even the way people get hired and promoted in small towns like my home town has a racially-motivated undercurrent that favors some.
And, for you to go further to say the US doesn't have much of a problem with racism has to mean you're trying to make a point for an agenda. Just because you've never seen a banana thrown on a NBA court means nothing. Google for some articles about the crap Black pro athletes in the US hear on a regular basis during games. Just because their aren't collective chants doesn't mean there aren't just as many a-holes in the crowds. I've lived in Europe for 7 years. Their flavor of racism is different; it's almost nationalism-based but I agree that they have their problems as well.
I wonder what you mean by "brown skin." Are you Italian? Indian?
I do agree that this story is more about anti-terrorism and overreaction. That you *do* have right.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I hear they will be arresting 4 year olds next if their birthday balloon pops
I'm from rural Georgia and during a trip to Birmingham, Alabama I felt like I had traveled back in time over 30 years. It reminded me a lot of the attitudes I saw in my youth. There are still a lot of people who were raised in a prejudiced environment but things have improved much. I was recently talking with a very country friend of mine who said something that would be labeled racist by most here although he probably didn't intend it as such, he called a guy a "black asshole." He stopped and kind of looked down for a second and said "I really shouldn't say it was because he was black, it ain't got nothing to do with that, he's just an asshole." I was kind of surprised that he made the distinction because for him identifying people by color is just natural.
One time I put balsa wood spars at the bottom of a dry cleaner bag, lit a couple of birthday candles in the center and held it over the BBQ to fill with hot air. It floated up and slowly glided along like a flickering glowing ball. I caused a huge traffic jam as the whole west end of the city got out of their cars to watch the UFO. When the candles burnt out it just disappeared. Many people saw it zooming off into space, which I sincerely doubt.
Things are not perfect, no. Of course, since we are talking about human beings here we can consider that things never will be perfect. For the most part here in middle Georgia when racism raises it's head it generally gets slapped down. It is not that it doesn't happen, it is that it is far less tolerated. Perfect it's not. I do remember being in the Air Force back in the 80's and at tech school my roommate was from upstate New York. I was shocked at how racist he was. He made most of the bigots I knew back home look pretty tame. I had been suffering from the same delusion most people have, that all racists are from the South. My time in the Air Force was pretty eye opening, some of the biggest bigots I met were from the New England states.
If this kind of thing gets people arrested and tried as adults, how come this guy is still walking free?
Ok. I looked at the what happened and determined that the punishment does not fit the "crime". What she needs is a lecture on responsible chemical use, to have her parents called down to the school in the middle of the day and to be sent hom with a one or two day suspension (for her relatively minor recklessness). The goal is make sure she learns the lesson that she is not allowed to mix chemicals without supervision. Expulsion, on the other hand, certainly looks like behaviour of a cowardly administrator who looking to cover their ass.
The criminal charges are just stupid.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
When I did (university level) chemistry, we were told that bases were actually more dangerous to your eyes than equally strong acids.
The caustic solution will form a scale on the surface of the eye, and continue to damage the cornea underneath whereas acids will wash out with water. (Although I guess this only applies if you have the chance to wash it out.)
The real reason for the fear of acids over bases is all the movies where the bad guys throw acid in someones face, and that it is easier to get hold of really strong acids than strong bases.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
were --> where
then --> than
their --> they're
payed --> paid
its --> it's
(I skipped the regular typos and sentence structure issues.)
How is the grammar education in that low class school district that's only 10 miles away?
This is why the have zero tolerance policies. It's cowardice, pure and simple. The administrator's are afraid they may make a decision that will upset someone. Now, with zero tolerance policies in place, they can just shrug, point and say "See? Our hands were tied. Nothing we could do."
I agree with others posting here that the correct response (given that no-one was hurt, no damage was done and there was no intent to hurt anyone or cause any damage and given that this kid was otherwise a model student and had never done anything wrong before) was NOT to call the cops but to give the kid a week of detentions or maybe a weeks suspension, maybe combined with a stern warning to the kid (and the school as a whole at the next school assembly or something) not to do such things again because people might get hurt.
I think you miss a key point: Racism doesn't necessarily imply people not getting along. It just implies that, say, they might be more likely to arrest a black person than a white person for doing the same things. Say, arresting a kid and charging her with a felony for doing a science experiment.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Clearly what happened is a girl looked up how to make a small scale explosive and did it in the school yard. Got caught and claimed it was a science experiment, then went further to claim it is racism. Ridiculous, she got caught and is trying to deflect condemnation from pointing at her behavior.
Pretty sure that, if you're a kid, but not a black kid, "what's coming to you" for a thing that doesn't injure anyone does not involve felony charges and being tried as an adult.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
According to the article the Science teacher denies knowing about the experiment before hand, a suspension for mixing chemicals without authorization is probably justified.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think Zero Tolerance polices are bullshit regardless of history -- and indeed, once you start taking history into account, you can't be talking about a zero tolerance policy, because if there were history to talk about, there wouldn't still be a student.
As to whether she "lied" in saying it was a project: She didn't say it was a project assigned by a teacher. "Project" and "project specifically assigned by a teacher" are not the same thing. Maybe she lied, maybe she didn't. She may well have been intending to do something like this for the science fair, and screwed it up. Or maybe she was just making excuses. We don't know! Asserting that it can't have been a project because the teacher said it wasn't is stupid for two reasons:
1. Not all projects are assigned.
2. Teachers also lie.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
America has effectively criminalized teenage hijinks and curiosity. Non conformist behavior is cracked down upon - hard.
I've said it before: the country is unhinged and more than a little crazed.
The student is not a terrorist. At most the kid is acting out because of issues going on in the world or at home. Shoving them in the fascist meat reactor of the criminal system and ending their education is not the answer to making one more productive member of society.
I suppose it depends on if you believe the worst cases of racism are those that are easily identifiable. Personally, I think the fact that USA employers (nationalwide) give over 30% fewer callbacks for a resume that has a black sounding name (vs. an identical resume with a 'regular' or traditionally white sounding name) is tremendously worse than the inane chants of drunk football hooligans.
Unless the kid who was let off the BB gun charge shot and killed his brother while he was at school, then I'm failing to see how the cases are comparable. It's one thing to blow something up at school, you have the potential to hurt a mass of people, and given events of the past 10 years or so, that's kind of a big deal.
Near as I can tell, the kid who shot his brother took place at home. As such, this reeks of sensationalist journalism (which is pretty much par for the course when it comes to Huffington Post, sadly). I strongly suspect that the Huff Post article author look into the ASA's case history to find a case where she let a white go, and decided to prosecute the black one. Since I happen to be an intelligent and discerning adult, I have to ask myself, who's actually pushing a racist agenda here?
Now, with that out of the way. I did this "experiment" when I was a kid as well. We didn't style it a science experiment. We did it as a halloween prank. We used aluminum foil, pool cleaner, and a 2 liter bottle. Dropped the foil in, sealed up the bottle, and tossed it down a sewer. When it went boom, it scared the hell out of folks for a few blocks and made some shock waves felt farther out then we expected. We had such a good laugh, we did it again in another part of the neighborhood.
Now that I'm older, I realize how incredibly foolish we were, not to mention that there was danger existant that we weren't aware of. If someone had gotten hurt, I'd never have forgiven myself.
I think the felony charges is an overreaction on the part of law enforcement, and is a panicked reaction to the events of Columbine, VT, and Sandy Hook. I sincerely hope that once everyone involved has had a chance to settle down and not let their emotions get the better of them, that they'll drop the felony charges and not ruin the girls life.
I find myself unable to argue against the explusion though. I think the school board would probably be up to it's ears in rabid parents if they hadn't expelled her, and I don't think they want to be answering questions from angry parents about the safety of their children ad nauseum.
The student displayed poor judgement, and is about to learn that actions have consequences. I just hope that the adults are willing to show a little grace.
Most of Florida is not "The South." Anyone here who lives in an urban or suburban area is more likely a transplant from New York than a "Southerner."
Beg to differ. To be sure, the more urban centers that collect all the transplanted New Yorkers are markedly different than the rest of the state, just like Austin is way different from pretty much all of the rest of Texas. Still, that doesn't make "the rest of the state" any less retarded when it comes to how folks look on minorities, nor does this mean that there aren't racist dickheads in Miami, or Austin, or Denver, or Seattle. It's just that it's palpably more widespread here in Dixie.
But yes, the prosecutor should be shredded. The challenge is to get the jury to do it if the judge won't; a verdict of contempt of court for the prosecutor for wasting the court's time would be a great outcome but probably too much to hope for.
(and yes, a 16-year-old is still very much a child when it comes to making non-malicious mistakes like this)
What mistake? The fact that people are oversensitive and get offended by something completely unrelated to an actual bombing does not mean that this experiment was a mistake.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Sadly enough, when I went through AP Chem (ironically enough, in a Florida public school) that's exactly what it was. In Chem Honors, I had been actually allowed to play with chemicals (with supervision). AP Chem was nothing but lecture and home work, absolutely zero lab time. I dropped the course and transferred into something else.
So the answer is to look rather hard at the rule book - health and safety is usually a good starting point - and find all the serious infractions that are occurring in her office etc etc. It's impossible to live by the rules because they are so complex - which is a deeply scary situation for all of us; if 'the man' want to remove us for something, then he can...
The only difference between "Science" and "Recklessly mixing chemicals" is whether or not you take notes and share your results after you're done.
I'm fairly sure that assembling a controlled environment, measuring the amount of reagents and ensuring the results won't potentially injure someone are also part of the difference between "science" and "recklessly mixing chemicals."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
This is pretty much how some of our rights got ignored after 9/11; most people seemed to become more paranoid, oversensitive, and foolish than usual, and out came the TSA and the Patriot Act. I don't think some kid should be punished or told she made a mistake because she set up an experiment; I think people should stop being oversensitive and idiotic.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It was a kid in the playground making an explosive device out of a coke bottle, aluminum foil, and drain cleaner, replicated what she'd seen on Youtube.
It was not for class. It was not a science fair. It was some dumb shit being stupid with dangerous chemicals in an unsupervised, uncontrolled, and unsafe environment.
I fully support expelling her from school.
With that said, charging her with a felony is ludicrous, unless it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to hurt someone else with the device.
but hey....
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
I think all who read the article agree that the school's response, and in particular that of the school police is completely disproportional, and in fact unreasonable. The fact that one could, if one is so inclined, construe the fact that the chemistry experiment more or less exploded as 'discharge of a weapon' does not mean it is an obvious or justified way to proceed.
Unfortunately, this act of 'throwing the book' at a high school kid for messing up a science experiment very 'American' in its callousness, up to and including the rote disavowal of responsibility on part of the authorities disingeneously parroting stock phrases about "'acts' and 'consequences'".
Clearly in a position of authority one can destroy a young student's life with impunity (an unwarranted criminal record, a huge and irreparable blemish on her CV, plus in all probability a set of ruined grades that will put paid to whatever chance she had of entering college or university), simply because the family in question doesn't seem able to pay for a pricey lawyer or wield the kind of community power that would guarantee a quiet 'settlement' without adverse consequences.
As to 'playing the race card', it's no secret that racism is alive and well in the US, especially the South. This is particularly well-documented, and one certainly doesn't need to refer to the Rodney King affair to provide examples. It is therefore not unreasonable to suspect that this particular over-the-top punishment (for that is what this is) has racist roots. But suspicion is not proof of course.
Admittedly this particular affair could well be the result of equal-opportunity stupidity and callousness. An investigation of the school's record for punishment by race could shed light on this aspect.
However, I feel that the BB-gun anecdote is pertinent, as it highlights a double standard: extreme permissiveness towards guns and deaths caused by them but a hysterical response to a stupid chemistry experiment gone wrong.
If nothing else, the affair serves as an educational example of what to expect in the way of justice, fairness, consideration and wisdom on part of petty officials in the US.
We actually built small mortar and pestle-ground bombs out of KNO3, sugar, carbon, and pure sulfur at my high school. Someone used too much and blew theirs clear up and nobody really cared. We almost purposely made chlorine gas and then I accidentally breached the container and got a mouthful and felt immensely sick all day but nobody really cared either, lol. And this was a top rated high school in my state, not some dump like the next town over, lol.
Not explosive. In that case, it'd be a ballistically induced projectile weapon!
"Misusing discretion" (the problem that motivated institutions that kept getting sued because they kept misusing the discretion to adopt zero tolerance) and "removing discretion so that the circumstance of particular cases can't be considered appropriately" (zero tolerance) aren't the only choices.
The first can be the result of either malice or incompetence, the second the result of a deliberate choice not to permit competence.
Being upset at both is not people flipping a coin and getting upset with heads or tails, its people being told "Heads I win, tails you lose" and being upset at either choice.
Obligatory Ayn Rand:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
We were in the back yard making rockets out of a film canister and vinegar/baking soda. OMFG we could totally go to jail. What will my six-year-old do in prison? I hope he knows to make somebody his bitch the very first day.
Just because you've never seen a banana thrown on a NBA court means nothing.
It has happened in the NHL in Detroit. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/23/wayne-simmonds-banana-flyers-red-wings_n_977423.html
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Holy infringement of free speech, Batman! Can I assume that the school administrators and police involved were appropriately punished?
That is not a trivial consequence, especially considering that (at least around here) expulsions apply to the entire county-wide school system. It means your entire family would have sell the house and move, and potentially even change jobs.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is not true in any sense in which it is relevant to the real world. Certainly, there are senses of "possible" for which I would agree with that statement, but they aren't senses of "possible" for which the premise of the hypothetical presented is true in the real world.
As long as the real world experience of a significant subset of the population involves experiencing race-based discrimination, we have a racism problem. (Gender is irrelevant, of course, to racism, but replace "race" with "gender" and "racism" with "sexism" and the same is true.)
“Destructive device” means any bomb, grenade, mine, rocket, missile, pipebomb, or similar device containing an explosive, incendiary, or poison gas and includes any frangible container filled with an explosive, incendiary, explosive gas, or expanding gas, which is designed or so constructed as to explode by such filler and is capable of causing bodily harm or property damage;
*snip*
“Destructive device” does not include: (a)A device which is not designed, redesigned, used, or intended for use as a weapon;
*snip*
(5)“Explosive” means any chemical compound or mixture that has the property of yielding readily to combustion or oxidation upon application of heat, flame, or shock, including but not limited to dynamite, nitroglycerin, trinitrotoluene, or ammonium nitrate when combined with other ingredients to form an explosive mixture, blasting caps, and detonators; but not including: ... [fireworks, guns, and toy rockets]
So unless this was intended to be a weapon, it is not a "destructive device" under the law. If it did not lead to combustion or oxidation (read fire), then it's not an "explosive" under the law. It may be a "bomb," but only in the same sense as a cherry bomb.
So I'm really curious what felony they think they can charge her with, because it's certainly not one of these. It might be against school policy, but there's no way a felony charge will stick. The DA is foolish to try it.
I guess you flunked your chemistry class, that's why you're so bitter (and stupid). There is no acid produced in this reaction, you basically have Al interacting with NaOH.
Referring to this minor exothermic reaction as "fucking dangerous bombs" just shows your complete lack of perspective about life in general. Did you know that any car dealership has "bombs" on their lot (these make a loud BANG! when explode and clearly have the ability to kill and maim people)?
This isn't just a problem with educators. It's a problem with western society in general: "rules are rules, I have to enforce them" (along the same lines of, "hey, I was just doing my job when I slaughtered those Jews..."). No, you cantakerous nitpicking fucks, it is with extreme rarity that rules should be enforced to the letter, hard and fast.
We have a systems of extremely strict rulesets -- too strict. In order for society to function, to breathe, there must be a social contract where the enforcers use equally extreme discretion and consideration, where actions are weighed against all of the circumstances and it's not just assumed that every act is one of malice. Either that, or we operate on the honour system. Society will collapse if neither one of those principles are upheld.
Rules are often designed with the edge-cases in mind; the few bad apple that spoil the bunch. But you don't carpet bomb the whole damn orchard because of a one bad apple.
This student created an illegal explosive device by mixing those chemicals
Illegal? Prove it. Have you forgotten about innocent until proven guilty? Oh that's right, it doesn't apply in schools.
What law did she violate? It certainly wasn't Chapter 790 of the FL statutes, because a device has to be intended to cause harm in order to be covered. Clearly this girl wasn't intending to cause harm.
Having travelled all over the US (and living outside of it), I can say with some certainty that the racial *undertones* of the southern culture are extaordinarily stronger than they are anywhere else I've been in the English speaking world.
While racism is always somewhat present, even in a place like Ontario, Canada, where natives are still often treated with scorn, even if it's not endorsed publicly, it happens on the street constantly.
I'd never heard the word "nigger" used in a derogatory sense in my life (outside of television and movies) until I was in a small town in Virginia about 10 years ago, and I overheard it during a conversation in a gas station parking lot.
I've since heard it a dozen times or so, always in Albama, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas.... Never heard it, except in a joking context in Canada or Oregon or Massachusetts or Minnesota.
Bear in mind I was usually in small towns and I'm a big bald white guy who was driving a (rented) pickup truck. I'm fairly certain that those guys wouldn't have talked so freely if they didn't think I was "one of them".
I recently watched an old movie staring Mickey Rooney as the young Thomas Edison. In one scene, Edison makes some nitroglycerin and disaster is only averted when he shows it to a knowledgeable military officer on the train - this results in some tense moments before the explosive can be disposed of. Although Edison did get into some real trouble over this, he was lucky that the current legal climate wasn't in effect back then. Now he'd be charged with a dozen serious crimes, including the manufacture of WMDs, and find himself locked up for the rest of his life.
Thirty years ago, my high school chemistry teacher taught our (A.P.) class how to make some explosives. What better way to effectively demonstrate exothermic reactions?
And my teacher demonstrated lithium+water reactions, nitrogen triiodine crystals, hydrogen vs. hydrogen+oxygen mixture ignition, etc. With an abundance of safety talk and equipment so that we understood how dangerous some of the demos were.
If I'd dropped a chunk of lithium in a bucket of water on school property, I would fully have expected to be hauled before the principal. She had no business conducting unsupervised chemistry on school property - I refuse to use the term "experiment", because I think that's absolute bullshit. She was constructing a draino bomb as a prank, pure and simple, and was caught.
Please help metamoderate.
Sorry, sometimes the resentment leaks out a bit. Then I think of all the kids who don't even have electricity or running water and think I didn't get it that bad.
This is in no small part because the South is the only part of the country that really has black people everywhere. Look at this or this (for the second one, you'll need to select View More Maps and choose Black Population). Outside the South, black people live in cities. In the South, they live in small towns, in rural areas, and yes, in cities, but there's just a lot more interaction between whites and blacks, and they are inhabiting distinct cultures (if you don't believe me, compare the Real Housewives of Atlanta to those of anywhere else - maybe Orange County.
Humans are wired to be racist the same way we're wired to be tribal - it takes a sustained, conscious effort to overcome. The Czechs and the Slovaks decided to part ways, and they are so ethnically similar that they speak mutually intelligible languages. The fact that we have taken an incredibly toxic environment of mutual distrust and hatred and turned it into a mere dozen instances of "nigger" in the span of fifty years is an incredible accomplishment. Racism is a lot less common in the North, but so are the actual black people with whom a white person might have a negative interaction that would serve to justify (in their mind) a racist belief.
According to the article the Science teacher denies knowing about the experiment before hand, a suspension for mixing chemicals without authorization is probably justified.
If I was that science teacher, I would probably deny any knowledge too. But then somebody might question why a Science teacher would allow a student to perform an experiment that had not been discussed with the teacher.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You're absolutely right. There is no statistical quantitative or qualitative difference between the punishments meted out to white students vs the rest, neither within the school system nor with the larger criminal justice system. How could anyone even suggest that?
Surely if there were someone would have kept track of it and brought it up by now. Oh wait. But forget the numbers. I like my privilege and we can't have the other colours getting uppity, best be keeping them in check.
Sure it's wrong to say that "large diverse group" are all bigoted. But the odds of encountering bigotry, both in quantity and severity, is higher in the south than other areas.
Also, strictly speaking, it's more regionist than it is racist, though admittedly race does play a factor. For example, I'm less likely to have a bias against a white person in Canada as a bigot than I am a white person from the US south, rightly or wrongly.
Lastly, it is funny when people of the south cry "racism" about being broad brushed as racists. To them, I say, "Hurtful, isn't it?" Rather than complain, they should take comfort in the fact that otherwise you belong to the dominant group of society and take it as a learning opportunity of how difficult it is for people who don't get that luxury.
I was about to mod you up for at least showing a different side of a story, but then I read your last paragraph and decided you don't deserve it. Next time leave out the attacks.
Stick to the liberal arts paths, kids...
You can't get arrested or expelled for writing a pretty poem or sticking a cross in a jar with pee, after all. Just don't draw a picture of a gun.
I had a sucky sig.
Holy infringement of free speech, Batman! Can I assume that the school administrators and police involved were appropriately punished?
Nope, there was no retribution. Though at least in the end (and a few weeks later) the charges were dropped, and the expulsion was revoked. He was subsequently allowed to wear the shirt, and several other students at the school wore the exact same shirt in order to express solidarity.
It means your entire family would have sell the house and move, and potentially even change jobs.
No, usually there are charter schools available pretty much anywhere, and are funded as part of the normal education system. Many of these charter schools are there for that exact reason. After a year or so they could remove the expulsion after demonstrated good behavior.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's not really possible to live an entire (average, full-length) life without discrimination, but it is sometimes possible to overcome discrimination.
I'm pretty sure the felony prosecution is bogus, considering what Polk county is like in general. But I'm going to set the race debate aside, since no one is going to change any minds on that subject anyway. What I'm looking at are:
1) The explosion was "small" but was apparently big enough to be heard pretty far away. This wasn't a test-tube "pop" experiment with hydrogen. On the other hand, no damage to people or property was reported. So "was it bigger than a firecracker?", "was it bigger than a cherry bomb?". And what prosecutions for other commercially available "explosive devices" have taken place in Florida in the past? You know those cases must be out there. Fireworks are sold legally in most parts of FL and all it takes is an adult stupid enough to provide the fireworks to an equally stupid kid.
2) She elected to do it on school grounds and not in the science lab or at home. I think this was more of "let's reproduce that YouTube video" and less "science experiment" than is being claimed. OTOH, it clearly was an _experiment_ and not an attempt to actually damage anything.
3) We have no information on what, if any, safety precautions she had in place. Being a teenager, probably none, but we don't know.
4) There's a strong hint that she's protecting another kid here. If she was just doing it on her own, she could have done it nearer to her home. I bet they'd drop all charges if she coughed up a name, and it wouldn't surprise me if the overblown response is just a form of coercion because the authorities have the same suspicions.
From my POV for a expulsion, I'd be looking for something like a 1/4 stick of dynamite sized explosion, and for a felony prosecution, I'd be looking for actual damage to body or property. There's certainly enough intent and stupidity on her part here to justify a suspension and maybe a misdemeanor prosecution for attempting to cover it up as a "science" experiment, but I don't see evidence to go beyond that.
We are the 198 proof..
If she was brown (Asian brown, not Mexican brown), you would see FBI, DHS, ATF, CIA, NSA, [fill in 3 letter Federal agencies] at that school and international news coverage on the case.
The bit that gets me is that a school actually has a formal rule saying "expulsion for any student in possession of a bomb (or) explosive device... while at a school (or) a school-sponsored activity". My schools tended to have rules about playing conkers or skidding on ice but this is a different league. Also is generating a little bit of hydrogen 'possession of a bomb or explosive device'? If so then bombs are everywhere.
No analysis on that or explanation? Just "everything sucks. forever. and it will always get worse. fuck everything."?
They say cynicism often parades as wisdom...
Perhaps her parents will enroll her in a educational process where her highly active intelligence isn't constantly being beaten down to a sub-par level?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
I guess BB guns get a pass because guns are traditionally the most recognized among the "arms" that a member of an American gun club has "the right [...] to keep and bear".
However I can see the same thing happening in up where "All dose Yankees live" It is part of the dumbing down of our system of discipline.
Our system has been so intent of getting the bad guys that they are willing to let hundreds of innocent people go to jail vs letting one real criminal go free.
We spend more time trying to find ways to get kids kicked out of school and or locked up in prison. Then we do trying to keep kids in school and out of prison. We are all humans and we make mistakes. If we don't make mistakes, we don't learn from them. Does that mean that there are no consequences, no. They are consequences but they don't mean permanent marks on your life for getting caught for making a simple mistake.
For this teen, It probably should have lead to Detention, or perhaps up to a week suspension, because setting off unsupervised explosions (even small ones) is wrong. But being that didn't cause any damage, or was meant to the punishment should face that fact.
Her biggest mistake was that she wasn't a big football player, if that was the case she would have gone off with a kids will be kids and ignored.
I agree with your comment 100 %. The things my generation did when we were her age would have seriously depleted the population gene pool, IF, the authorities had deemed them as criminal. In the 50s we had true freedom and most of us survived it.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
Yes, it's a well known fact (*) that all the senior posts in large Western companies are held by disabled black lesbians, isn't it?
It's also a well known fact that 99% of posts in large Western companies are senior ones.
All that means is that IF you manage to get a job in a 'large western company' when you're a white male you're golden. In reality it's a bit more complicated in that most of those senior posts are held by people who got into the industry when it was a lot friendlier to white males. TODAY it can be very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.
I don't read AC A human right
When I was a kid one of our class science experiments was to see who could make the best gunpowder using the classic Chinese formula.
Thank goodness for growing up in the 1960s when you could do fun things in school without being arrested.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
You forgot the worst part of zero tolerance: that the lesson schools are teaching to kids is that heavy-handed, inflexible rules and imposing authority is normal. The next generation isn't going to overturn the patriot act or roll back arbitrary and secret no fly lists, or demand that the government abide by the constitution because they will be used to having absolutely no rights, save what the authority lets them have.
Eehhh.. I went to a fairly authoritarian private elementary school when I was young and I rankled at the rules that I felt were silly, or there for no other reason than to be rules to follow. The zero-tolerance attitude may have encouraged my more anti-authoritarian leanings later on. Oh, I also went to a Catholic high school that was a lot more relaxed. >_> I ended up liking the teachers (except one weirdo) and the nuns a lot more than the students.
"Everyone involved is guilty" is also an approach taken from extreme "socialism", as practiced under Stalin. Interesting to see that these concepts now are implemented in the US. Guess when it comes to oppress your citizens properly, the USSR is an useful model.
On the matter at hand, can a society become even more non-free and anti-curiosity than this?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This wasn't part of a science fair. She did it on her own with no adult knowledge and not as a part of any school class or activity. So yes it was wrong in that sense, the school should have had some sort of punishment, but not expulsion.
Indeed. And zero intelligence basically means those deciding have stopped being human beings and have become soulless, compassion-less automatons with no independent effective intelligence whatsoever. That used to be the hallmark of the servants of the devil. While I am an atheist, this comparison seems to be spot-on to me.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You don't call them to protect you, you call them to punish those they can't protect you against. In other words, calling the police makes you a bitch.
Oh, look, it's John Fucking Galt. Do everyone a favor and move to Somalia if you don't approve of the rule of law.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Have you been to the South?
Isn't drano Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH). It's a strong base used to turn fats into soap. I used to use it all the time as a kid to make hydrogen (in 1l glass bottles with a baloon). It's very exothermic but not a particularly fast reaction unless you can get powdered aluminium. She probabbly did it in a sealed container which would be very dumb, esp on school property.
All the dangerous stuff I did as a kid was good for learning risk management. Today, I feel like maybe the idocracy movie has some truth to it.
46137
It is standard practice. Charge as much as you can possibly get away with and plea bargain down from there.
In that case, why wasn't the "standard practice" applied to the boy?
Um, could it be because the boy isn't a minority, perhaps? Yes, I'm playing the race card, but... It's abundantly clear that in America black people are often charged with more serious offenses than whites for the same act, are convicted at trial more often than whites, and receive much harsher sentences than whites convicted of the same crime. No, I don't have links on hand but the statistics do back me up, since I'm lazy I leave verification as an exercise for the /. reader. The point is, given the long-standing and well documented evidence of discriminatory prosecution of black people in this country, it's not at all unreasonable in this case to focus on the race of the accused. If the shoe fits...
A bomb is a bomb, regardless of what your gender, age, or skin color is.
I agree. I have no doubt racism still exists. I have some relatives in East Texas that have on many occasions shown that to be true, but in this case it seems more likely to be an overreaction to the Boston incident and Newtown.
Rape where the victim is white gets more severe punishments than where the victim is black. Black defendants in Washington, D.C. are much more likely to be exonerated (through jury nullification) than white defendants. NYPD Stop-and-frisks are around 2.3 million for blacks but 450K for whites. Pot use is higher among whites while pot arrests are higher among blacks. These are a few easily quantifiable bits of data. You also get the white "privilege" (horrible name for it) factor, i.e. you basically get treated with slightly more respect by default if you're white.
Race is (most likely) irrelevant here; the local police and school are taking grossly immoral actions for which they should be fired, but that has to do with raising children, not race. (The two are correlated, because there are usually better schools in more affluent neighborhoods where there are fewer minorities, but that does not make race the cause of the idiocy.)
Due to a series of unforeseen circumstances, my year 12 Chemistry class ended up doing a significant portion of the year unsupervised when conducting chemistry practical experiments.
I had a copy of my mother's chemistry text book and showed a number of classmates how to make touch powder - which we did; and TNT which they voted that we didn't do - but would have had access to the raw materials and equipment to make.
While this was over 20 years ago, it saddens me that people have gotten so precious about practical science by high school students in what is a largely monitors and controlled environment.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Sorry, that's how things were handled in the 50s. Beaver accidently left his 6" pocketknife in his book bag? Silly beav, go take it home and I'm calling your mom. Things have changed. Kids even drawing PICTURES of guns are being suspended. Crazy? Maybe, but so is kids killing a dozen students. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance, if they gave her a pass for setting off an explosion at school and then lying to cover it up what do they do to the next kid that brings a BB gun or firecrackers? The police charges may go a little too far, but charging and being found guilty are two different things. She'll likely plead and get probation, she's not serving time in federal pound me prison
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
^ Mod this up
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Honestly, I can't stand the way we treat kids today. We say they're important and then do everything we can to show them they aren't.
Then do something to change it. Sign the petition on Change.org already.
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
It's already at 25k signatures by the way...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Massachusetts was one that surprised me the most. I met a couple of guys from Boston that were bigoted as hell. They seemed surprised that being from Georgia that I wasn't. I don't say that everyone I met from there was as that would be far from true. Mostly it just puzzled me because the impression I got from the media was that all those folks up North were more open minded and progressive than us backwards Southerners. I grew up friends with several black kids and sort of just got along pretty good. I do know that culturally white and blacks have many differences but when you end up overseas in the military you find that you have a lot more in common with a black guy from Detroit than a white guy from Frankfurt, Germany.
We used to do this to get hydrogen to fill and launch weather balloons. It was difficult for kids to come up with helium in Alaska in the 60s...
No no no! I learned from a very special episode of Family Matters that racism is what it's called when an individual treats another individual with racial prejudice, and that is all. There is no such thing as systemic or institutional oppression, and there is no such thing as "society" or "culture" which forms rough consensus on all sorts of things including the relative worth of different kinds of people, and which shapes the individual opinions of thousands or millions of people at once. To talk about society, or institutions, or anything collective at all, means thinking about people in terms of groups instead of individuals, which is the very definition of racism!
Sorry, I pooped myself a little bit. What were you saying again?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Yeah, why have "zero tolerance", but then no gun control laws whatsoever? Wouldn't it be a bit more rational to actually have a gun registry, and then rap this girl over the knuckles for making some smoke?
If she pleads and gets probation, she's still a convicted felon with all that goes with that. Try thinking about what that means.
That large diverse group keeps a consistent record of bigoted behavior. I'll defend parts of Pennsylvania to the hilt as liberal bastions but I recognize the state as an ultra-conservative T in the middle. Florida has large retirement communities, liberal urban centers, and rural conservative stretches. The state's consistent record on race has been abysmal to say the least.
Lets call it what it is. Exceptions prove the rule more often than not. This case is classically Florida justice.
To boot, whatever she was doing it wasn't expulsion worthy and to go after her that hard seems to suggest racial bias or hardened paranoia. In either case the ADA should be questioned for her increasingly disproportionate decisions and perhaps be brought up for disbarment if this is more than just a small pattern.
Yes. And since the school isn't even trying to handle it internally, the correct police response is to caution the school it is neglecting minors under its care.
When I was in high school, that sort of thing got us more homework. Or maybe it was the homework? The memory isn't entirely clear, but I did have a pretty cool AP Chemistry class.
The are just now allowing integrated proms in Georgia. Florida is still a state away.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
In California, she could have been in the same situation with Dry Ice and a 2 liter cola bottle. (No joke: http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/16460.html )
assistant principal hears explosion, sees smoke, runs over and student claims "bomb" is science experiment. Seems reasonable, but teacher knows nothing about it.
Cause you know, you can't do science without permission from an agent of the State.
Try here: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot Not yet sure if they're accepting donations, but possible to add ones voice to the already loud throng.
Of course expell student and possibly charge with crime, after all the things that have been going on recently at schools the school would be neglectful if they didn't expell student and call the police.
I personally believe the school is being neglectful BY expelling the student, and refusing her a right to an education.
Lets examine what this student did. She mixed some cleaning ingredients with a plastic bottle of water.... Lets look at that again, she had a bottle of water. she had some cleaning materials. She mixed them. And she was expelled and will be charged as an adult (charged for what? dropping a mentos into a bottle of diet coke?)
So what was the result? The bottles top popped off, and caused some smoke. No one was hurt, and no property was damaged. She was expelled because the TOP of the bottle popped off. And YOU think this is ok?
Oh, she should be expelled because she was working on an experiment that her teacher didn't know about? Are you saying students shouldn't show initiative, students shouldn't think for themselves? Shouldn't do extra work? Students should only learn what they are taught? Perhaps they should be seen and not heard too?
This whole thing is asinine. Everyone responsible for charging this student, and expelling her, should be charged with child endangerment. They should be prosecuted for destroying this students life.
That doesn't mean one can't make a mistake. Measure wrong, read a description wrong (not understanding how powerful it might be)
"She wanted to see what would happen [when the chemicals mixed] and was shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too."
Shocked? Have they heard of youtube? Not to mention drain cleaner + aluminum foil produces a toxic gas - much safer to use dry ice + water(though you have to transport the ice I suppose) Just because nobody was hurt doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly stupid. Though I agree the punishment was harsh, certainly if anything the science teacher should be in trouble for allowing this to happen.
The attitude of most teachers and administrators is that so what if an innocent kid gets caught up in the rules, rules are rules. It's just easier to follow the rules than it is to enforce the spirit of them. It's amazing that educators just aren't thinking.
It doesn't surprise me that the educators aren't thinking though. They were brought up in the same school system that tries to stifle any sort of individual thinking so they don't know how to do it. Our public schools have devolved into pushing for formula memorizing, rule following, non-thinking students. When they grow up learning that they need to only follow the rules, then when they are the ones in power they have that same attitude. My little sister was reprimanded when in elementary school for sharing part of her lunch with another kid. If that kid couldn't remember to bring lunch money, then they had to starve! It makes me think of the Pink Floyd movie with the teacher that is abusing the children while in turn being abused by his wife. I worry for the future of this country and I certainly don't want to expose my children to that kind of environment. It will be home-schooling or a good private school for my kids, thank you!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
If when I'm an old man, I have to submit to a prostate check every time I get on a hoverbus because these youngsters were trained with zero tolerance not to question authority, I'm gonna be pissed.
On the bright side, free and frequent prostrate exams could save lives! :-P
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Absolutely. But a mistake in a controlled environment is less likely to be injurious or lethal than a mistake in "Hold my beer and watch this"-ology.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I can't straighten out this young person's life in view of the excessive charges being brought against her, or even get her back in school (though I think she has been ill served by the one she is in).
So, I humbly propose May 1st to be known as the Kiera Wilmot Science Day. On this day, I encourage teachers, scientists and adult volunteers of all stripes to perform a science experiment for the next generation. Invite them to see a chemical reaction, look through a telescope, search for fossils, or hell, just watch a gyroscope and think about what keeps it from falling over. Ask the kids what they think happened, how they would prove what they think happened, design the next experiment, etc etc.
Since the school system cannot do it, it is up to individuals to instill curiosity and wonder to the younger set.
I grew up straddling the Mason Dixon line. There was plenty of racism. Since then I have lived North and I have lived South. I have always found plenty of racism. To pigeonhole the South as somehow having more racism is misleading. It may be more overt, but the covert is more insidious, and both are pervasive. here's been a lot of improvement over the past 5 decades, but it is still alarming when I hear racial stereotypes perpetuated, which I am currently doing on the Left Coast. It is sad, but it is reason to keep working on it. Pointing fingers at "the bad places" is of limited utility. Be brave and learn something is a better approach.
--- Say something clever. Pretend it was me. Thanks.
Myself and about 4 other friends of mine in high-school did the same thing with HCL and aluminum with 2 liter bottles. We also used c02 dry ice an other fun things. Not to mention we distilled hydrogen with batteries and other methods to fill balloons and create big mushroom clouds, by which we lit by using alcohol poured on concrete in front of our house. Our parents sometimes watched us other times Not. Our neighbor was a fire marshal and sometimes watched for fun. We would video tape these experiments and our AP chem teacher would play them for our class. It was celebrated. Potassium was my fav. Now 2 of above friends are chemists. One of them teaching. Another a computer science grad that works for amazon and I'm a sys admin doing network defense. Good thing our school supported us. When we did dumb stuff they called our parents. None of us have criminal records.
Indeed.
What was the research? Where was the supervision.
Anyone can claim an experiment, but this sounds more like a prank gone wrong. It doesn't sound like reason for an arrest (at least not once sorted out), but it may be grounds for a suspension/expulsion depending on severity.
Asinine is writing a long winded reply when you should have RTFA. It wasn't water it was toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil. Kids have been mixing vinegar and baking soda with the same results for a long time. The difference here being lye is caustic and could have blinded someone. She knew what she was doing and choosing the chemicals created an explosive device. Criminal charges seem far reaching but expulsion does not. I made quite a few things like this growing up and not once was stupid enough to think it was a good idea to bring them to school.
Just thought I'd highlight this. The purpose of schools, from the very start, was never education. It was training workers.
This is a side issue, but calling everything that shoots BBs a BB gun is misleading. Most people will think of a spring-powered "Daisy" when they hear "BB gun", and it would be very difficult to kill a person with one of those. The gun mentioned in the article is probably a pump type "air gun" capable of shooting BBs or pellets at a much higher velocity than a spring-powered gun.
In any case, this is a case of a severe and tragic failure of parental responsibility. A parent who gives a BB gun of any type to a child should spend several hours training the child in proper gun use, emphasizing SAFETY. Things like: Use the safety but don't rely on it. Don't aim the gun at people. Don't shoot at anything where, if you miss, you don't know where the bullet goes. Don't have the gun cocked except when you're about to shoot it. Keep your finger outside the guard except when you're about to shoot. And much more.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
How does a kid being bullied not count as assault? Certainly when I was at school there was a lot of bullying going on and the school simply didn't care (even when people inevitably ended up injured). Whilst I'll agree that the first port of call should be for it to be handled internally in the school, if that doesn't work shouldn't the police be involved if only for the protection of the kids on the receiving end?
Drummer in our band in Frankfurt, Germany in 2003-2004, was a teacher at International Schule of Frankfurt. USED to be a high-school teacher in Baltimore. Broke up a knife fight between two girls and HE got into trouble for allegedly touching one of the girls "inappropriately" as he tried to pull them apart. That HE or one or both of the girls could be injured was immaterial. He basically said, "F**k this!" and is still teaching in Germany.
Common sense is dead!
Reminds of the saying, "When it comes to Florida, the farther south you go, the more North you get."
Hang on to your hat. The next victim will be the auto mechanic class when someone learns that autos can have 8000+ explosions per min at idle. Golly help the poor kid (or teacher) that has a backfire in the parking lot.
Next will be the ham radio club.
Followed by the computer club.
Removal of Chemistry and Physics classes will quickly follow.
Biology is next when it is learned that yeast make alcohol and cows fart lots of methane.
Learn to boil water in home education... no no no... someone could be scalded.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
I'll go one better - fire and charge the teacher. S/he was ostensibly in charge of the class, provided the materials, and was 'supervising'.
With that said, I don't really support finger-pointing responsibility. Firing and charging the teacher is still far more than what should happen, but compared to expelling and arresting the student it's less extreme IMHO.
Everyone, everwhere seems to be playing an extreme version of CYA - and all it does is victimize people who do something silly, stupid, not allowed. That's HUGELY different than intentionally shooting/bombing people. Not expelling/arresting a kid for accidentally bringing a kitchen knife to school that s/he found and brought to a teacher doesn't mean others will take that as an invitation to bring their brother's M16 and start shooting.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
TODAY it can be very [not nearly as easy]. Not impossible, but [not nearly as easy as it used to be]
FTFY
RTFA...she wasn't in science class, she wasn't at a science fair. None of the teachers knew anything or assigned her to do any sort of "experiment". While the punishment does seem rather severe, the /. summary makes it sound like she was giving some demonstration and randomly got arrested. She wasn't, she just did this out of nowhere.
Sure. But a lot of the problems you describe are not really attributal to Thatcher, whatever you think about the stuff she actually did do.
And there were times I didn't have electricity as a child. It was during the power cuts due to the Labour government just before Thatcher was elected so...
Before any of you experts dump your legal excellence on us, just take a look at the huffington post op ed. There is nothing indecent about it and in fact it illustrates the "School to Prison" pipeline in florida. Florida has privatized corrections. These companies also sit on the boards of sentencing guidelines. It is in their best interest to fill (or overfill) their prisons any way possible.
Did you read the articles or the police report? She was mixing chemicals in a plastic bottle in the schoolyard near a gazebo. She was not in a science classroom, the science staff didn't know she was doing it. Her statement to the police was that a friend told her to do it, and she didn't know what the reaction would be! This wasn't a science experiment, it was a kid screwing around and doing something stupid; that is, she built and detonated a small explosive device at a school. What if she'd screwed up and caused a big explosion? I have to agree with GP; ggp is an idiot.
This is printed on every bottle of toilet bowl cleaner: =================== Warnings & Directions Directions for Use: It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. Read the entire label before using product. Warnings & Directions =================== It doesn't take an 'A' student to realize that performing an unauthorized 'experiment' with dangerous chemicals on school property is a bad idea...I'm sure she had seen the YouTube videos of a 'Works Bomb"... oh, did I say bomb? Yes, these pack a devastating wallop and spray caustic chemicals... Tell me again how race have anything to do with it?