10 year old Arrested for Cutting Meat in School

JEROME DA GNOME

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Knife At Lunch Gets 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested At School

"She did not use it inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it. Nothing of that nature," explained Marion County School Spokesman Kevin Christian.
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So, we had her arrested!!!

Teachers that are unable to deal with a 10 year old girl cutting her meat with a knife without calling the Police should not be teaching.
 
That happened to me in elementary school. My mom gave me a knife in my lunchbox to cut something and I had it confiscated. My mom was quite perplexed at the whole thing.

I remember it happening several times to other students, too.
 
It is interesting... at least some of the people making the biggest stink about these zero tolerance policies are the same ones who vote for the "tough on crime" politicians. This all comes from the same "right-wing authoritarianism" and fear-based decision making that runs all through our culture.
 
Back in my day, we used to take our rifles to school so's we could get some hunting in on the way home. No one called the cops!
 
10 year old Arrested for Carrying a Weapon in School
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Fixed.

Now we could debate zero tolerance policies. I, for one, am in favour of them when it comes to weapons. First of all, they could severely hurt themselves or someone else on accident. Second, someone with less innocent motives may take hold of it and use it to hurt themselves of others. Third, they could intentionally severely hurt themselves or others despite having a legitimate excuse for having it.

And lastly, I would predict a lot of lawsuits :p .
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Fixed.

Now we could debate zero tolerance policies. I, for one, am in favour of them when it comes to weapons. First of all, they could severely hurt themselves or someone else on accident. Second, someone with less innocent motives may take hold of it and use it to hurt themselves of others. Third, they could intentionally severely hurt themselves or others despite having a legitimate excuse for having it.

And lastly, I would predict a lot of lawsuits :p .
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Are you suggesting that anything that can be used as a weapon be removed from schools? Because there isn't going to be a lot left, if that's the case.

The problem I have with zero tolerance policies are statements like this:

School officials said it doesn't matter what the knife was being used for. They said they had no choice.
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Yes, you did have a choice. You just had to exercise some judgment.
 
tsg said:
...Yes, you did have a choice. You just had to exercise some judgment.
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As did the cops have a choice to not arrest the child. There are interesting studies about people who are afraid to exert themselves under various conditions. Co-pilots, for example can be so reluctant to confront the pilot that plane crashes occur. I saw this on one of those 'how do you survive' shows but I can't seem to find a reference for it.
 
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Tsukasa Buddha said:
Fixed.

Now we could debate zero tolerance policies. I, for one, am in favour of them when it comes to weapons. First of all, they could severely hurt themselves or someone else on accident. Second, someone with less innocent motives may take hold of it and use it to hurt themselves of others. Third, they could intentionally severely hurt themselves or others despite having a legitimate excuse for having it.

And lastly, I would predict a lot of lawsuits :p .
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almost anything can be a weapon.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Fixed.

Now we could debate zero tolerance policies. I, for one, am in favour of them when it comes to weapons. First of all, they could severely hurt themselves or someone else on accident. Second, someone with less innocent motives may take hold of it and use it to hurt themselves of others. Third, they could intentionally severely hurt themselves or others despite having a legitimate excuse for having it.

And lastly, I would predict a lot of lawsuits :p .
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Give me a break. There are plenty of "weapons" in school.

I went to an arts high school, where the student body had an arsenal of saws, drills, drill beads, power tools, knives, blades, scissors, chains, scapels, pins, box cutters and carving knives at our disposal every day...but they confiscated our exacto knives.

It was pretty funny, the way we were monitored for "weapons" but had a portable hardware store in every locker.
 
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skeptigirl said:
As did the cops have a choice to not arrest the child. There are interesting studies about people who are afraid to exert themselves under various conditions. Co-pilots, for example can be so reluctant to confront the pilot that plane crashes occur. I saw this on one of those 'how do you survive' shows but I can't seem to find a reference for it.
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I heard stories like that when I was taking flying lessons. Most of what I heard sounded like "boiling frog syndrome" (even if it isn't true, it's still a good analogy) where the situation deteriorated so slowly there was no one point in time where the co-pilot could say "This is wrong. I must act."

I think this is a little different, though, as both the school officials and the sheriff's department are claiming not to have had a choice, as though the very presence of the knife dictated a sequence of events that couldn't be altered by man nor god.

If there was any indication she might be a danger, I'd be much more sympathetic to their actions. But she was using it to cut meat at lunch. She wasn't attempting to hide it as she likely would have if she intended to use it as a weapon. There was no indication of an altercation, so far as I can tell. It was a knee-jerk overreaction: "Sharp thing! Must call cops!"

If violence in schools really is a problem, there are better ways of handling it than treating the students as if they are all criminals.
 
skeptigirl said:
As did the cops have a choice to not arrest the child. There are interesting studies about people who are afraid to exert themselves under various conditions. Co-pilots, for example can be so reluctant to confront the pilot that plane crashes occur. I saw this on one of those 'how do you survive' shows but I can't seem to find a reference for it.
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You are equating the teacher police relationship with pilot co-pilot, can you not see that this is asinine?
 
In California, the school policy is similar but it appears the school is not absolutely bound to report every student who is caught with a 'dangerous' weapon:

http://www.californiahealthykids.org/c/@6A3o4j9_QwScs/Pages/lawsdbproduct.html?record@1185

There might be some wiggle room in California but perhaps this school didn't want to take any chances.

Once a crime has been reported, the police have to act upon it. At this point, it is up to the state attorney to decide what happens next, not the police.

By the way, in case any of you have kids in school, be advised that laser pointers are considered a dangerous object, the same as a knife or a gun! They can be pointed at someone's eyes and cause injury, so they're banned in schools.
 
There's also one thing to this story that is conspicuous by its absence. There is no claim that the policy is well known. I would think that if the policy was well known somebody would be saying "she knew it was against the rules to bring a steak knife to school." If they are going to institute such an, in their words, aggressive policy, they are obligated to inform the people who are expected to obey it. In my, albeit limited, exposure to school boards, I can make a reasonable guess that the policy is fairly vaguely worded, containing something equivalent to the phrase "no weapons" which leaves quite a bit of room as to what actually constitutes a weapon and quite a bit of doubt whether a steak knife would qualify. The fact that she had it out in public cutting meat at lunchtime supports this. If she or her parents knew and ignored it, that's one thing. If they didn't, it's quite another.

Obviously I don't have enough information to conclude that this is actually the case, but I don't think it's an unreasonable to assume it is likely.
 
tsg said:
Are you suggesting that anything that can be used as a weapon be removed from schools? Because there isn't going to be a lot left, if that's the case.

The problem I have with zero tolerance policies are statements like this:



Yes, you did have a choice. You just had to exercise some judgment.
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No, I am saying that we shouldn't allow kids to bring in weapons willy nilly. Dangerous objects that are necessary for class, provided by the teacher, monitored, etc are perfectly fine.
 
I understand the concern over safety, but I have a hard time understanding why a 10 year old child was arrested. Arrested!! She's just a kid. Surely there are more reasonable ways to deal with situations like this. Stories like this frustrate me to no end.
 
Are belts (those things that hold trousers up, made from leather with a metal buckle) banned from schools? If not they can be very dangerous weapons. Almost as good as a knuckle duster.
 
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