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12-Year-Old Sikh Boy Arrested In Texas After Bringing a Power Bag To School (salon.com)
AaronW writes: A 12-year-old Sikh boy in Dallas, Texas was accused by another student of bringing a bomb to school. Apparently he had a powerbag; a backpack with a built-in phone charger. Rather than send him to the principal's office or ask for an explanation, the teacher instead called the police, who promptly arrested him and threw him into a juvenile detention center for three days. The school promptly suspended Armaan, and the police released him after three days but required that he wear an ankle bracelet.
Verifiable details are scant, for this case — probably because the whole thing seems to revolve around some 12-year-old kids talking to each other. Armaan's story is that another student said his bag looked like it had a bomb in it, and that he would report it. Believing it to be a joke, Armaan laughed. The police say he "admitted" to joking about a bomb, and they insist their actions were justified. A school district spokesman says the family was notified, but the parents say they had to dial 911 to find somebody who could tell them where their son was being held.
The basic problem is that mundanes see any home-made electronic device as a bomb. This is the terminal point of anti-intellectual bias in society, if you can make something, it's assumed that you're out to make something harmful.
Bruce Perens.
He was 12, talking to another 12 year old, thinking it was a joke between them. The cops couldn't check the "bomb" begot arresting him and holding him for three days? A 12 year old? Really? What an asinine comment.
Please stop with the silly "we need more gun laws" argument every time someone farts. You're just embarrassing yourselves now. We have enough gun laws. Mine can't leave my house because we have so many silly laws. And contrary to popular leftist, racists beliefs I can prove guns aren't violent. My guns just sit wherever I leave them. If anything, they're lazy.
It's the United States. It's all normal over there.
You mean in the sense that the school and the police falsely claimed it to be a bomb threat in order to attempt to justify their blatant criminal violation of the kid's civil rights?
Yep, I can agree with that.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I did not quite realize the police are obligated to arrest someone just because someone else say so.
This is a child. What happened to "think of the children?"
It's the anarchists, wait, communists, no, terrorists!
(Here's hoping a bunch of people lose their homes in civil suits)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This is your big citation:
Note found right at the top of that Wikipedia pate
It happens that the site the Wikipedia entry was copy/pasted from, is John Lott's website. John Lott is a discredited "gun researcher and advocate".
http://www.armedwithreason.com...
Fact is, if you own a gun (and I do), you're about 15 times more likely to hurt yourself or a family member than you are to defend yourself or stop a crime. If you live in Florida, Texas or Georgia, that goes up to about 40 times more likely.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The story is that he was making a bomb threat, not that there was a bomb. You can make a bomb threat while having only a box of cheerios in your backpack and it's still a bomb threat. The debate between the family and the school/police was whether there really was a bomb threat, a joke of a bomb threat, or a misunderstanding.
Then the next question, do you hold a 12 year old for this without notifying and having parents or guardians notified and present? And the notification must be from the police and not the school, the phone call should be from the police to the parents and not from the parents to the police. And not an excuse "we tried to contact them" without follow through.
And given that it's a 12 year old why treat such a person as an adult? That's absurd. This is more of the zero-tolerance nonsense that's turning schools into daytime detention centers. Let he who is without childhood mistakes cast the first stone.
Texas managed to rebel twice against their own country. The first time was very duplicitous - move in a lot of gringos, complain that they're not being treated fairly because of their race, they held illegally held slaves against Mexican law, then start a shooting war for independence (they did ask for help from the US who declined). Then they eventually end up in the union where they are grateful for being allowed to finally keep slaves without government interference. For 16 years anyway until they seceded with the confederate states for the sole reason of being allowed to continue the institution of slavery.
So racist from their very beginnings, and the two rebellions certainly make Texas a very untrustworthy state. Even though 50 years ago a Texas born president forced them to become civilizied and abandon their institutionalized racism, it does not mean they've stopped being racist.