Hawaii School, Police Department On The Verge Of Being Sued For Arresting A Ten-Year-Old Girl Over A Drawing
from the getting-the-most-oppression-bang-for-your-tax-buck dept
Putting cops in schools is never a good idea. It only encourages school administrators to hand over discipline problems to the "proper authorities," which is what administrators used to be until the addition of law enforcement on campus.
Having cops on tap also appears to encourage parents to demand a law enforcement response to disciplinary problems. That's what happened at a school in Hawaii, where a 10-year-old student was arrested over a drawing another student's parent didn't like. The school -- and the police department that performed the arrest -- are on the verge of being sued by the student and the ACLU.
Here's a brief summary of the incident from the ACLU:
On the morning of January 10, 2020, a parent complained to school officials about a sketch N.B. and other students had drawn in response to another student bullying N.B. The parent unreasonably insisted that school officials call the police.
After arriving on school grounds, police interrogated 10-year-old N.B., handcuffed her with excessive force, arrested her without probable cause, and transported her to the police station—all without letting N.B. see or speak with her mother. The police and school officials took these traumatizing actions despite the fact that N.B. was cooperative and did not pose any danger to any person or herself—and without accommodating N.B.’s disability, which was documented with the school.
The demand letter [PDF] from the ACLU goes into greater detail about the incident, including police officers keeping N.B.'s mother, Tamara Taylor, from speaking to her daughter until after the 10-year-old had been cuffed and transported to the police station. The school did not notify Ms. Taylor that her daughter was being questioned by police and made no effort to ensure the student had any counsel (legal or otherwise) advocating for her or ensuring her rights weren't violated.
Everyone involved in this acted like it was out of their hands, an inevitable series of events stemming from one parent's complaint.
On January 10, 2020, Ms. Taylor received a phone call from Honowai Elementary Vice Principal, Ms. Terri Runge, at 8:42 am about N.B. being in a dispute with another student. N.B. had allegedly participated in drawing an offensive sketch of a student in response to that student bullying her. Ms. Runge asked Ms. Taylor to come to the school, because “they are thinking about calling the police.” Ms. Taylor implored Ms. Runge to not do so and told her she would be shortly on her way.
A Honowai staff member and Honolulu Police Officer Ford greeted Ms. Taylor when she arrived at Honowai Elementary and took her to the school office. Officer Ford then began explaining his presence at school by saying that “some parents take things out of proportion and make things bigger than what they are,” apparently referring to the parent who had insisted that the police be called that day.
Here's an inadvertent demonstration of how terrible law enforcement officers are at de-escalation. Rather than seek a resolution that didn't involve use of force, the officers acted like it was beyond their power to placate an angry parent without arresting a pre-teen over a drawing.
And we are still talking about a drawing -- one that targeted a student who had been bullying N.B. The drawing was apparently a collaborative effort with other students. N.B. did not want the drawing shown to the alleged bully, but another student decided to bring it to their attention. The "target" of the drawing was apparently unmoved by it. Neither were their parents. It was the parent of another child that had seen the drawing that had contacted the school and "asked the school to call 911 on N.B."
Meanwhile, as N.B. continued to be separated from her mother by police officers, everyone with the power to shut this down shrugged around the place bemoaning the apparent impossibility of the situation.
A female officer then entered the room and stated that the parent was going to press charges. Ms. Taylor then asked what the charges were for, explained that she would also stand behind her daughter, and that she did not understand what was going on. Instead of answering these questions, Officer Ford stated that he is a father to an 11-year-old and he did not understand why the parent was acting the way she was acting about the situation. The female officer stated that she has a 7- year-old and did not understand either. Vice Principal Runge appeared and described the complainant parent as being “difficult” and that she had never seen a parent act in such way.
No one could understand why a parent could act this way. Well, maybe the parent acted this way because they knew school administrators and police officers could be weaponized this way. So, instead of anyone stepping up to shut this down, N.B. and her mother found themselves surrounded by a bunch of people with a lot of power claiming they were powerless to do anything but what one parent demanded.
When Ms. Taylor asked why they had called the police when she had specifically asked that they not do so, Ms. Runge responded: “Well, it’s the parent’s right if she wants us to call the police for her.” When Ms. Taylor pushed back, arguing that the school had the discretion not to call the police, Ms. Runge simply reiterated that it was the parent’s right to ask the school to do so.
Yes, the parents have that right. And Ms. Taylor is right, the school has the discretion to reject their requests. No one felt like exercising their discretion that day. So, Taylor's daughter was cuffed, put in a police car, and taken to the PD for processing.
Then there's the racial element. Statements were made by administrators and officers that suggest they would have handled this differently if N.B. wasn't black.
Officer Ford confided to Ms. Taylor that they thought it was best for her not to see N.B. because they did not want Ms. Taylor to “beat [N.B.] at the school.”
[...]
Ms. Taylor also expressed dismay about being forced to stay in the room, to which Ms. Runge explained that they had to stop Ms. Taylor because they saw “fire in her eyes.”
[...]
Ms. Runge also explained that she had prevented Ms. Taylor from leaving the room that day because she was concerned that Ms. Taylor would get arrested for intervening and attacking the other parent or the police.
A bunch of powerful people violated rights because they were too powerless to deny a parent's demand for police involvement and too afraid of what an Angry Black Woman might do if allowed to see her child or confront another parent, despite both Ms. Taylor and her child being fully cooperative during this string of rights violations.
The end result was this:
Even assuming the complaining parent wanted to press charges—and assuming there were valid charges that could be brought against N.B.—N.B. could have easily been surrendered to her mother who was at the school. No one else involved in the drawing incident was arrested or interrogated. No charges were ever brought against N.B., who as a ten year old did not intend to commit a crime with a drawing she did not draw alone and did not even want to deliver. N.B.’s detention and false arrest without probable cause violated her rights to be free from unreasonable seizures under the Hawaiʻi and U.S. Constitutions.
[...]
Ms. Taylor and N.B. were singled out because of their race, both perceived and treated as “more dangerous,” less rational, and less worthy of respect for their rights than the non-Black students and parents involved.
Right now, the ACLU and Taylor are only demanding a raft of changes to school and PD policy when it comes to detaining, questioning, and arresting minors. They're also demanding $500,000 in damages. That demand will presumably increase if the city and PD decide they'd rather defend themselves in court rather than make some common sense changes to policy and put another $500k on the taxpayers' tab.
This all could have been avoided if any one of these very powerful people had actually used their power wisely and deployed the discretion they so often claim is necessary to prevent outcomes like this. If this parent really felt police should be involved, they should have made that call themselves. Instead, they chose to weaponize two bureaucracies to achieve their ends: the punishment of a 10-year-old for offending them with a drawing.
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Filed Under: arrests, bullying, hawaii, honolulu, honowai elementary, police, school resource officer, students, tamara taylor
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We were scared of what the bad bad black woman would do... but not worried for ourselves as we talked to her without aiming weapons at her.
Well they taught the 10 yr old an important lesson about 'Merika...
Never ever upset your betters, they can just snap their fingers and upend your entire life because a picture, NOT EVEN OF THEIR OWN CHILD, and the powers that be will bring all of their powers to bear on your black ass.
Scary black woman!!!!!!!!!!
We thought she might hurt the other parent!!!!!!!
500K isn't a big enough ask.
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Re:
500K would be plenty if it the people who were involved were personally on the hook for it, the problem is that they're just going to shuffle it onto the school and therefore have no reason to care that the school is out half a million.
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Re: Re:
Oh, they'll care alright. Once their local school tax needs to increase multiple percentage points to make up the difference. They'll also care when the school stops providing sports it used to offer, and grades start to fall across the board, because the taxpayers said no to the increases. They'll care when they are inconvenienced to the point that they need to move to find "better" schools for their kids to go to. They'll care when they need to hire more school resource officers and the money isn't available. They'll care when the administrators who caused the whole mess get reprimanded because obviously, the black parent and their kid was in the wrong. (/s for those that can't perceive sarcasm. Both for the expectation that such a thing would happen in the first place without massive outcry, and the idea that the arrested kid and their parent was somehow "in the wrong" at all.)
Know when they won't care? When the next school board meeting comes. Or when it's time to elect representatives for that school board. Or when the non-sports after school programs get dropped to pay for this blunder. Or when the school lunch program suddenly has worse food on offer due to cut backs. Or when they fire more school counselors and teacher's aides as an "overbloated administrative budget". Or when the idiot administrators that caused this mess get promotions and accolades for their "great service to the community".
The idiots that caused the mess are not the only ones free of consequence. Most of the electorate believe themselves to be in the same boat, and disregard evidence indicating otherwise as problems caused by others.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Oh, they'll care alright. Once their local school tax needs to increase multiple percentage points to make up the difference."
...at which point some dipshit con man in politics will try to earn some votes by blaming it all on "the libs" - because sure as shit, lookit the school goin' downhil now that the po-lice ain't there to keep the little hellions in line no mo...
"Know when they won't care? When the next school board meeting comes."
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Personal responsibility is for OTHER people
'I don't understand why this is happening but I'm going to do it anyway' is a surefire way to know that none of the people involved should keep their current jobs or be allowed in a position that holds any sort of power, since they are apparently happy to just sit back and let a kid be harassed while lying and claiming that they had no choice to do otherwise.
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Re: Personal responsibility is for OTHER people
First the 10 year old was bullied by a kid at school and the administration did nothing.
Then a parent got involved and the administration and the cops bullied the little girl and her mother.
None of them should be allowed any more power than asking "Do you want fries with that?" because they can't seem to handle it -- despite "being parents themselves".
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Re: Personal responsibility is for OTHER people
Sometimes they cheer them on...
Y'all sometimes forget that these people do not exist in a vacuum.
Yes into moderation I go but I want people to see this "judge" & the others inpower supporting her terrorizing black children.
We like to think no one would support the adults in this who passed the buck because it makes no sense.
The Judge STOLE a child from a parent, then helped rush an adopted through as the appeals court was still looking at her original ruling.
They fact they get nearly 200 a day for each body in a bed in no way could explain why so many children end up in jail on this horrid woman's watch.
https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist
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Cut their salaried
Like I say about zero tolerance, Ii they can exercise no judgement as a "manager" position and don't have discretion then they should be paid minimum wage. That should fix the problem quickly.
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Re: Cut their salaries
Unfortunately, low salaries are a common excuse used by people who justify school staff or even police misconduct. This may backfire.
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Re: Re: Cut their salaries
I dunno - I have a real issue justifying them being paid more based on their behavior. I always thought of raises as merit-based, where if you do well, you get more. If you're a fuck-up, not only do you not get paid more, you're relegated to lesser (read: shittier) work.
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Re: Cut their salaried
Judgment. Discretion. "Difficult". "Concerned"...
They keep using those words; I don't think any of those words mean what they seem to think they mean.
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Re: Cut their salaried
If [a school's management team] can exercise no judgement as a manager and don't have discretion then they [should not be managers].
Cutting pay while maintaining the responsibility (you know, everything that isn't discipline that is the majority of their job?) is a shit take. If they don't want the responsibility (handling discipline), you take the responsibility (the job) away, not just the pay.
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"Discipline problems" in school environments is already extremely broad. Often the problems themselves are... well, non-problematic, and "discipline enforcement" is a greater problem than the "violation", or even a problem at all unlike the "violation". That's not to mention when said "discipline enforcement" is itself illegal (up to the point of blatant criminal conduct against the student).
I'm not based in the US, but I was once told crying violates school policies, and students who cry on school grounds are to be beaten if not outright involuntarily committed and forcibly administered antipsychotics. And that same person expressly told me they will not care about constitutional rights or criminal law and will do whatever they consider necessary.
Note how this wording implies that the parent is entitled to compel this action, rather than that this request is not inherently prohibited. Note also that it is quite difficult to write about these matters while clearly separating: 1) the right to not be punished for making a request; and 2) the right to punish others for not complying with the request.
The above also leads to a false dilemma where a person saying "the school should not have complied" is considered to implicitly say "the parent making a request should have had their children taken away".
Note how this wording implies a crime was committed, even though unintentionally. I doubt that drawing rises to any level of illegal conduct.
In general, note the context that the other student bullied the girl, and the allegedly offensive painting was drawn collectively, which leads me to think the bully had way more victims than just this girl. I doubt the school didn't know about this bullying or took appropriate measures to prevent it.
In conclusion, I'd say that police actions, while grossly unacceptable, were in this case a proxy of a greater-context threat actor, that of "parental rights" and systemic child abuse.
Especially when "parental rights" means not just the presumption that parents should not be sanctioned (formal warnings/fines/loss of custody/etc.) for their conduct regarding children, but also the notion that parents must be granted major procedural advantages when making legally binding demands to third parties in relation to their children, or even in relation to children in general.
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Well, the bully's parents raised their kid to be a bully. It's no surprise that one or both of the parents behaves like a bully, too--demanding police involvement. Still, the police are supposed to know better. Of course, we know that cops these days do NOT know better. (How else can they justify their jobs unless they go around cuffing 10-year-olds at every opportunity... gotta stop those "bad seeds" from growing.)
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Re:
It wasn't even the bully's parent involved in this.
This was Karen demanding someone do something to stop those scary black people.
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Re:
It wasn't even the bully's parents demanding police involvement.
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First They took our porn...
These fucking Children! Now they are overtly committing criminal acts! And expect to get away this shit? What the actual fuck! I... I just can't. Is there no line they will not redraw?
At the very least, they should have locked up the mother as well. So that balance in the universe could have been restored.
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Re: First They took our porn...
Then they took our kiddies and put them in jail.
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Re: Re: First They took our porn...
Not our kiddies. The black ones. How else are they going to learn their station in life?
Pretty sure this would not have happened if a black mother had demanded a white girl to be arrested by the police.
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They did it with the willing acquiescence of said two bureaucracies. It wasn't even "we're just followin' procedure, ma'am". It was "we don't want to take any responsibility."
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"Now look what you made me do!"
From last week, "Now look what you made me do!" is still some abuser sh*t.
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All bullying starts with adults - it's the most important class!
Victims of bullies somehow tend to end up in that position of being handcuffed and permanently branded as inferiors by the state apparatus. How is that? Because kids aren't innately bullies. They would do stupidness to each other of course, but at random.
Adults are the ones who show the kids who it's safe to bully, who should be afraid. Adults teach the kids to be bullies because the nerd who knows math might get a crummy job, but the bully could be PRESIDENT! Adults know it's not what you know but who you know, and you got to know him while helping beat the crap out of some unsuspecting member of a lower grade and lower class. Adults lead the charge, they call the shots, they work hand in glove, teacher to parent, they grade their kids in smirks and practice them in snide excuses. Adults extend bullying in the present as the privilege of the past, and the future.
Censorship is never fair. It is never proportionate. It is never clear. It is meant to be abused. And the odd part is, it is never really intended to work for whatever purpose they say it is supposed to work for. If they say they are defusing tension, they are making it; if they say they are fighting racism, they are sowing racial hatred; if they say they are teaching people to be responsible, they are teaching them not to believe or care; if they say they are teaching justice and law, well, that is a laugh.
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Re: All bullying starts with adults - it's the most important cl
I believe dropping Mark Ames quotes is appropriate here:
"One reason why our society has failed to curb bullying is that we like bullies. Hell, we are bullies. Research has shown that bullies are not the anti-social misfits that adults, in their forced amnesia, want them to be. Rather, bullies are usually the most popular boys, second only on the clique-ranking to those described as friendly, outgoing, and self-confident. The Santana High kids and parents both felt that there was no point in complaining to the administration because they wouldn't have done anything anyway, a reflection of the fact that popular winners are treated better than losers. At Columbine, parents and students both felt that bullies were favored by teachers and administrators, and that complainers were often ignored or blamed. Indeed, losers pay for being losers twice over in our schools, taking both the punishment and the blame."
"I know that I learned far more valuable lessons when I was the bully than when I was bullied. The lesson was simple: it felt better to be the one dishing it out. The pangs of remorse after pummeling a scrawny dork wore off pretty quickly; the humiliations of being on the receiving end, however, were replayed over and over and over, for years and years. I cannot imagine what kind of callous moron could possibly see anything in being a victim of bullying. Maybe the idea comes from our cultural propaganda, where the bullied nerd, like Back to the Future's McFly, always fights back in the triumphant climax, becomes a stronger person for it, and goes on to be a successful patron of a nuclear family, while the bully winds up washing his car. Bullying, in our cultural propaganda, is simply a dramatic plot device which the hero overcomes. Rarely, if ever, is it represented as it really works- as something privately eating away at kids, flat and uninteresting, and never overcome."
"I don't know a single useful lesson that I or anyone else ever learned from getting bullied - it only brought shame and debilitating memories. Getting bullied always leads you to wrong decisions and wrong conclusions. You compensate in all the wrong ways. You wind up looking for someone weaker to bully yourself, you lose confidence and hate your weakness, and you fear and distrust the wrong people, all of which are reasons why bullied kids overwhelmingly wind up as failures in the real world, according to recent studies. You have to have never been bullied to think that it teaches something valuable and necessary and makes you a stronger person."
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Johnny was picking on Tameka...
And Tameka called Johnny a "poopy-head". And now Tameka has a record.
What's wrong with this country?
None of the "adults" in this little saga behaved like adults. Not a word about what happened to the alleged bully... was this bullying investigated? Was anything done to discipline the bully, if the bullying was confirmed, by the school?
More blaming the (Black) victim... just another confirmation of how unbiased the American 'justice' system is. Curious about the races of the alleged bully, and of the otherwise uninvolved parent who pushed the school to call in the police... who wants to bet they are 'other than Black'? No takers... damn, no surprise there.
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I know I can't prove it, but I just know it
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Re: I know I can't prove it, but I just know it
"...a Republican, a Trumpista, and a Karen"
I don't disagree with you but saying the same thing three times isn't making your point biglier.
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Meanwhile the bully....
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Re: Meanwhile the bully....
Not necessarily assaulting. The bullying could have been drawing racist pictures. We haven't been told.
In any case, it sounds like the people that SHOULD have been involved settled the situation between themselves. And then some other kid told their parent what had happened and that parent demanded the black girl be removed from the school by the police. The police, for some reason, complied, to the point of isolating the mother, with the cooperation of school administration, so she couldn't get involved "because we all know how black mothers act when justifiably angered".
This is a LOT worse on the racism side than what I got from the original report. Everything wrong that happened appears to be strictly due to the race of the mother and daughter -- unless the other parent currently had a restraining order out against the mother being restrained.
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Well with the US's systemic censorship and adults inability to not censor themselves.(Just look around sh*t, fsck and other such nonsense). Schools(read indoctrination camps) being up on the scale of the blighted so called "police reform" scam. I think everyone is getting what was asked for.
The results systemically attributed to the absolute ignorance of history and kids are just along for the ride. Its laughable. I have no sympathy for any of it. As in so forth and the only true path #abolishthepolice and as it's never come up before because adults hate to deal with real life in any meaningful way #abolishmandatoryschools (Indoctrination camps).
P>S> Dont shoot the messenger kids!
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Re:
One thing to consider is exactly what these kids would be learning at home, specifically from the asshole parent who started this shitshow.
Some of these parents are fucked up crackpots, and frankly we really don't want their spawn to be entirely shaped by these people.
Stupid begets stupid.
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One surprising thing
Sadly, there's only one unsurprising thing about this. That this was done via a 3rd party parent. Otherwise, this is fairly standard for the way that school's handle bullying. The bully is never punished, but anything around standing up to a bully is where all the punishment will centred around.
Poor NB; but hopefully in the end, they'll get a nice cheque from the taxpayers. Still likely it won't have been worth it.
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broke off
Somebody's about to get P...A...I...D!!!$!$!$!
It's like that time Beavis & Butthead sued the school, the teacher, the principle, the school district head... N.B. will be able to afford private school when this is all over.
Whatever picture they drew is going to be the ultimate NFT
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Racial Dynamics in Hawaii
Be careful with applying mainland stereotypes to Hawaii. Race relations are different in the 50th state. For one thing, whites have never been a majority. They aren't even the largest minority, coming in second after asians (combined).
I'm not saying its perfect, but it is different. Dr King thought race relations in Hawaii were a model for the rest of the country. Which is why he and his folks wore leis during his famous final march from Selma.
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Re: Racial Dynamics in Hawaii
While i am sure the dynamics might be a bit different, and you might point out some salient nuances, Hawaii somehow ended up as a state, and privilege doesn't abandon the euro-descendant just because they aren't the numerical majority somewhere. That's literally how colonialism works.
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Re: Re: Racial Dynamics in Hawaii
If you haven't lived here for a long time, you simply don't know what you are talking about. Hawaii's culture is unique, a product of plantation owners deliberately bringing multiple racial groups to work the fields. They thought they could turn them against each other so they would be easier to control. Instead they unionized and built cross-racial solidarity. It is unlike anywhere else in the USA.
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Blind to the real problem
Or, more likely, knew and supported the bully and its family.
Keep in mind this would likely be no different if the police were not on campus and called in.
Think about the school’s position. What would happen if the child went back to class and got the crap beat out of her?
Or if she stood up to and, as often happens, beat up the bully?
And if a further incident happens the school is then at fault for not removing the girl from the situation in the first place.
A case could be made up to criminal negligence or criminal endangerment
Such situations are caused not because of police involvement but because we don’t have strong anti-bully laws.
Bullying is, even at that age, still often criminal level intimidation. Threats of, and actual, violence.
But they wiggle their slimy little shells of existence through the loopholes.
Focusing on the “over reaction” of cops and the school ignores the real problem in such situations as this.
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Re: Blind to the real problem
I'm uncertain what point you're trying to make here. Are you attempting to say that the school should have reacted the way they did, because if they didn't then someone was going to get hurt and they'd have to react the same way they did anyway?
I think you also overestimate how often bullies get stood up to. If the bully is, in fact, powerful enough to leverage relations with the school administrators and police department by reputation alone, standing up to a bully would be fucking suicide. The victim in this case did absolutely no "standing up to". And she got treated like a criminal anyway. Exactly what "position" do we need to consider for the school here after they demonstrated a complete lack of spine when confronted by a triggered Karen?
I don't know what lawsuits you've seen, but I've never seen a case where bullying resulted in a school or a bully got actively punished.
See, it's responses like these that prompt others to disbelieve you when you claim you're not defending police brutality. Both the school and the police acted foolishly in this case. Literally nothing was stopping the police from telling off the parent and the school for wasting their valuable time. There was absolutely no meaningful reason for the police to comply with the wishes of an entitled bitch of a parent.
For what it's worth, there was a time when maybe I might have supported anti-bullying laws, but this is predicated on having an administration in school or in law that isn't subject to bias or manipulation. A stronger anti-bullying law is pointless in a situation where enforcement is applied selectively, which is often what encourages bullying because bullies know that they will always be shielded from the consequences. A stronger anti-bullying law is toothless in a culture that celebrates bullies and protects them from the negative outcomes of their actions, which is what necessitated the law to start with.
And how helpful do you think you're being, simping for the cops in this case? Any criticism of the school prompts you to scream "Think of the school's position!" Any criticism of the police prompts you to beg "It's not the cops fault!" Exactly at what point do you think the victim of the bullying could have done anything substantial to avoid getting handcuffed based on a complaint that she didn't even fucking make to begin with?
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Re: Re: Blind to the real problem
My point is the school could be sued if someone gets hurt. So they chose the quickest way out.
Didn’t say she did. But she could. And many bullied people eventually do stand up for themselves. Often in the most violent and least acceptable way.
I didn’t say anything regarding the police over response. Nor the blatant racial overtones in their actions.
The bully
I didn’t. I have no defense for the way the cops treated the child or her mum.
In a country where every is willing to go to court for anything… I’m I do understand the school though.
Bullies generally are spoilt white males.
Parents of bullies are generally rich white adults.
You think they wouldn’t sue the school?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind to the real problem
In a case where not only did the bully's parent response come as a result of the victim's friend, but the victim herself requested that the incident shouldn't be escalated?
And here we come to the reason why anti-bullying laws enjoy widespread support despite any enforcement being difficult to the point of ineffectiveness. The concern isn't someone got bullied, the concern is someone standing up in response. And you seem very keen on defending the school on the grounds that a violent response might have happened, despite the established fact that the victim had no intention of doing so. Now why is that? Why are you bending over backwards to stand up for a school that clearly had other options besides victimizing someone who didn't deserve it?
What you did say was to turn your focus away from the fact that the police and school fucked up. Instead you trotted out excuses to defend the school taking the path of least resistance. Which is why your demand for stricter anti-bullying laws make no damn sense. If you support the school and the police for taking the easy way out due to the threats of lawsuits, a stricter law would do jack all. If anything, defending the school and the police's actions as you did so here would convince them that they can freely ignore a stricter anti-bullying law, because the path of least resistance will always be a viable option.
See the above paragraph. How effective do you think stronger anti-bullying legislation will be, if a bully knows full well that school apologists like you will defend to the death the school's fear of getting sued by unreasonable assholes?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind to the real problem
Because I was bullied until HS freshman year.
Until I had enough one day and smashed the fucks face in. With a desk.
So I speak from experience in understanding where a bullied kid or teen can go and reach to in ending their torment.
And understand what the school is trying to do. The most hands off way of ending the current cycle.
That you think hardening law is a way out, not a way to clamp down?
Because until the bullies are the ones getting handcuffed the bullied will continue to, eventually, lash out and fight back when cornered in a now way out situation.
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And? Was this to be your stunning explanation for why schools are justified in handcuffing victims? Because one victim in your life experience pushed back, that justifies the school harassing the victim who did nothing of the sort?
Why would the police and school handcuff the bully, when you're here insisting that the school was justified in handcuffing the victim? The school will always have an out for harassing the victim, even when they know it's dumb, because people like you will be here, thumping your chest to defend the school's fear of being sued by an unreasonable asshole.
If you're trying to create a scenario where victims of bullying no longer feel cornered in a "no way out" situation, maybe don't keep trying to find excuses for schools and policemen who decided to not grow a fucking spine.
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No, it states why I recognise that a bullied student can snap.
Have you seen the drawing?
No?
What if it was someone with a chain gun blowing body parts all over.
Or some 70s horror slaughter.
Zero tolerance laws are there for a reason. But we need regulations that stop us from reaching that point.
My statement was clear. I think we need stronger anti-bully protection.
Because it’s usually the victim that is caught up in the system. And not the bully.
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I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. What's confusing is why you were defending the school and the police for sticking up for the bully.
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There's some deep irony about a 2nd Amendment enthusiast like yourself suddenly defending laws that allow for the handcuffing of children just because one of them bit their Pop Tart in the shape of a gun then said "pew pew". Yes, really. Techdirt regularly covers zero tolerance law stupidity. If you're going to to ignore bullying incidences but a drawing is what causes the school to lose their spine and call the fucking police, that's not a defense of school policy. That's a sign that, as Mark Ames has pointed out, bullies are regularly defended by schools, not punished.
No, your initial statement was a spirited explanation of why the school and police saw fit to punish a girl that did not want news of her response to bullying to be spread. Your initial statement was, in summary: "Well, yeah, sucks to be the victim, but because she might have reacted violently, the school and police were right to punish the victim even if they thought the entire situation was dumb, because she might have acted like I did, plus the bully's parents could be even bigger assholes so of course they had to take the path of least resistance, they were completely helpless otherwise!"
And, again, how do you think defending the school in this case helps? I'm genuinely curious why you opted for this train of thought. What do you think defending the school's actions in this case would have contributed to lobbying for stronger anti-bullying legislation? Do you think a rich, white, entitled asshole parent would stop threatening to sue the school, if they know that you'll be here to explain why the school should listen to them and not stand up for the victim?
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I defended the school.
I defended the police responding, not how they responded.
People like you are why laws never change.
You only look at the action: not the cause.
In an environment where a school can be sued for profiling a bully, and sued for getting involved in disciplining a bully, and sued for not disciplining a bully and for calling the police and not calling the police and for and for and for and for!
FYI! Fact: the system is broken. In every way!
Let me remind you of causality!
IF the school did not take the actions it did, and a day, a week, a month later, this poor bullied girl shot the bully, or stabbed the bully, or chopped up the bully, or even just punched the bully…?
The school would be getting sued. And would likely be found guilty.
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But you just said they can be sued no matter what they do (or don't do). So "they could be sued" is not a reason or defense of anything.
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Yes it is. It’s a point of concern when the laws are so crossing they need to be changed.
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LOL, please. You literally typed up paragraphs defending the path of least resistance that the school took. And now you want to talk causes? You know what encourages inaction? Chumps like you terrified of institutions getting sued by assholes. Why the fuck would anyone look at "causes" when apologists like you will always be there to lick the footprints of stubborn administrators?
Oh, we're playing the imaginary scenario card now. If as a result of knowing full well that the school will not punish the bully, the police take barking orders from a bully's mother and willingly handcuff a victim of bullying, and the bully victim knows they're in a "no way out" position, and ends up shooting, stabbing, or dismembering the bully? What then? Or if a month later, the bully puts the victim in hospital, knowing full well that she will not be meaningfully punished, will you still be defending the school's actions? Because anything to avoid getting sued by a fucking Karen, right?
See, the amount of "and for"s you bothered to type while likely inebriated indicate where your priorities truly lie. You don't actually support anti-bullying laws. It's abundantly clear that your only concern is whether the school gets sued. And since you've already established that the school gets sued either way, your only recourse is to defend a bully, even though the actual figures of authority involved (besides the bully's parent) all knew the entire debacle was goddamn stupid.
You're not interested in what happens to a bully or a bullied victim. Your interest entirely lies in whether a school's status quo gets disrupted. You'd rather a bullied victim gets fucked up by the police than risk a school getting sued, because your priorities are that skewed.
And this is after you tried the "hurr durr I hit a bully so all bully victims have to be punished in case they get violent" card. This is some next level patronizing biblical "love your enemies" bullshit. You put battered wives to shame with this level of authoritarian simping.
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I see. Your one of those “what I perceive is meant” people.
Must be new; I don’t hide things in language. What i say is all there is to it.
The problem is the entire legal system is broken when it comes to responsibility.
We need stronger laws. Laws that protect those who counter bullies.
From the bullied child to the school
And we need to rid the books of easy ability enabling for your “Karen’s”.
You come off as a moral outrage person. ‘Woe is the world’. Demanding change.
And as soon as someone says Ohkay…?
You suddenly attack any thought of it.
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When you lead off your "I think bullied victims need more protection" argument with a statement of "The school needed to act the way they did because the bullied victim might have done something even worse down the line if they weren't handcuffed"... what did you think was going to happen? There's no perceiving involved. You claimed that the school had to act the way it did, even if they disagreed with the bully's parent, because adding to the harassment of a bullied victim was the best way forward for the school.
And, again, how do you think this will be achieved if the standard response is to defend the consistent harassment of victims? You keep holding up "they could be sued" as a reason. Why do you keep legitimizing this fear based on the possibility of the bullied doing something, but everything the bully, the school and the police does is kosher?
You spent an entire thread defending the actions of everyone except for the bullied victim. What did you think was going to happen? That everyone else would start nodding and join in to admonish the victim for troubling the bully, the school and the police? Do you think that people would start campaigning for the laws you claim to support when your kneejerk response is to heap the responsibility on the victim?
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But thats not what I lead with. I started by saying the school to the path of least liability in a sue happy situation.
By passing a law that made the reporting of bullying and the discipline of bullies a shielded act.
Just the school. And the fact that the police came when called.
I did not defend the racial profiling “fear” of the responding officers.
Maybe read what is written and not assume things not said?
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The fact that you’d defend the actions of the school—and the police choosing to respond, regardless of their actual response—says volumes about you; given the context, none of it is good.
Even if the school was afraid of being sued by an entitled Karen, it could’ve handled the situation without calling the police. Even if the police were necessary for handling the situation (and I don’t concede that they were), they could’ve handled the situation without handcuffing a child. Even if the victim of the bullying had every legitimate intent of getting back at their bully through violence (and there’s no evidence that says they were), they didn’t need to be treated worse than the bully will ever be.
The victim didn’t need to be treated like a bully, and defending the school for doing exactly that—regardless of the reasoning for its response—is little better than victimizing the child all over again. The school had other ways of handling this situation. That it defaulted to the comfort and (ass-covering) safety of the “call the police” option is nigh indefensible.
Oh, and don’t try to use your personal anecdote about bullying with me, Lozenge. I went through a shitty school life, too—likely worse than yours, I’d wager—and the sympathy you’ll get from me for your experiences will be minimal at best when you use your life as part of your defense of the school in this situation.
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welp. That’s it then.
I believe the school took the best route they could given the shite laws and lack of funding in public education. Schools can’t afford to blow through their pittance of funds on lawsuits from rich entitled people.
That the police handcuffed a little girl over a drawing is a poor choice of overreacting.
Unnecessary. And did nothing for the situation here.
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See, that's what you don't seem to understand. When all's said and done, your first instinct is to still defend the school - despite having no hint that the bully's parent is rich. Entitled, clearly, but no clue whether that parent is rich.
Let's see - in your attempt to martyr yourself for the school, you assumed:
Yeah, you don't get to fucking play the assumption card. Your biggest worry and concern is that the bullied victim does something, not the bully. Your focus is on preventing the bullied victim from reacting. And you expect everyone else to believe that you're about preventing the root cause when your anger is focused in the most misdirected way possible?
I'm going to spell it out for you because I've tried to hint at this and subtle nuance sails right over your head. Let's say someone does, in fact, try to propose a law. Only for the school and police to say "We can't do that. If we do that, rich parents might sue us!" What then, asshole? And if your response is "You can't assume the school will do that", you can fuck right off after spending an entire thread defending the actions of a school for fear of being sued by the wrong people.
For what it's worth, Techdirt has covered many articles about anti-bullying laws, typically anti-cyberbullying laws, over the years. Most, if not all of them fail, and not for a lack of trying. Schools genuinely cannot be fucked about anti-bullying enforcement. The ones that do come up against a lot of resistance because their approach is usually heavy-handed to the point of resembling zero tolerance overreach. So I tend to approach anti-bullying proposals with a huge pinch of salt, not least because I've seen such attempts happen and realistically it just paints an even bigger target on the victim.
The one thing I'd agree with you on is the fact that the system is broken. For some reason you believe standing behind the school and not the bullied victim is the big brain play here and you get angry because nobody agrees with you.
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As I thought. Not taking what is read.
No. I said it was possible: a well documented occurrence that happens.
No. I know where that comes from. It’s how we get kids shooting up schools.
You got one right out of three.
I just did.
No, my biggest concern is the school, in doing nothing at all, winds up in court. Draining its already meagre funds.
No, my focus is on the most likely method to keep everyone out of court.
The problem wasn’t the school calling the cops: it was the over reaction of responding police.
Once a law is passed reporting bullies is no longer a legal grey area. Any case against the school reporting would be tossed.
And you stand behind the victim how? Everyone wants to treat bullies with kid gloves. Nobody wants to do anything. With no definitive law protecting the school for reporting people are best just ignoring the situation, or doing what a parent says if it’s within the legal liability context.
We have qualified immunity for police! Why not for reporting bullies. Some states have laws protecting the reports of rape, or child abuse. Why not bullying.
I get angry because these situations still happen.
I get angry because people ignore the legal realities. Because an angry parent could quite easily retaliate.
Because there’s no safe way for the victims to report anything.
For the school to report anything.
For a solution to the problem.
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In defending the school’s response, you’re implying that you thought such violence was likely.
That says more about your priorities than you think. None of it is good.
And yet, you defend the school doing the one thing that was most likely to end with at least one person—the victim of the bullying—in a court of some kind.
We treat children with kid gloves because, for all their awful actions, they’re still children. They deserve a chance to grow into a better person, not be taught that they’re either entitled to get out of trouble or will get in trouble if they stand up for themselves.
Options between “do nothing” and “call the cops” exist for dealing with bullying situations. That you see those as the only viable options for dealing with bullies (or their victims) is your problem. For fuck’s sake, are you really so adamant about being “tough on crime” that you think we need to be tough on kids as young as (or younger than) 10 years old—that the school-to-prison pipeline is a good idea?
Two things.
Qualified immunity for the police is both a bullshit legal doctrine and not an argument you want to use on this specific issue.
“I’m not angry about the school calling the cops to have a victim of bullying being handcuffed—I’m angry that the school didn’t do it sooner to cover their asses!” That’s you. That’s you right now.
Except there is: telling administrators. But you’re so quick to jump to the same conclusion as this school—“we need to call the cops so we can cover all the necessary asses”—that you see the easy route of dealing with a thorny issue such as bullying as the only viable solution. (Other than the victim inflicting violence on their bully, which only creates more problems.)
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Congrats. You just reached the WaPo level of ‘we can’t sell our story so we make one up’!
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I’m allowed to interpret what you’ve said however I wish. Don’t like it? Sue me.
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There was really no need to make one up. You've spent the whole thread clutching pearls at the idea a school might get sued because a parent made a demand that both the school and the police thought was absolutely baffling and unreasonable. You retaliated with a useless anecdote about how you fought back in school when bullied, therefore everyone needs to prevent bullied victims from acting out as a priority to avoid litigation - and only brought up the "Oh wait, actually I don't like bullies!" card when your priorities got called out on.
Again, let's revisit one of your choice quotes for this thread:
I don't need to, as you put it, make up a story. It's very clear from your angered response that the idea schools can be sued for anything and everything is a sore spot for you. For some reason. For some inexplicable reason that convinced you that yes, sucking up to the bully's parent was not only the right thing to do, but the best thing to do. Then you get angry as more posters chime in and you can't figure out why, oh, why won't people focus on the poor, troubled school? Why do people keep trying to focus on the fact that the bully wasn't punished? Why do people not see the possibility that the bullied victim might act out like I did?
Man, I almost wish a younger relative of yours got bullied, so you could go tell them "Oh damn, if only there was better anti-bullying laws, but since there aren't, your bully simply can't be punished because their parents might sue the school, and then you won't have a school anymore!" Almost. I'm not so much of a scumbag that I'd stoop to your level.
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Yeah, we all got that impression since the first post you made on this article. "Won't somebody think of the poor school! Of course we had to have the victim handcuffed! A bluh bluh bluh bluh!" Never mind, of course, you also made assumptions about the school's actual funding. On top of the assumptions you made about what the victim might have done. But somehow all the other assumptions we made about what the bully, emboldened by the fact that they got away with their bullying scot-free, is magically unacceptable to you.
Who the fuck is treating the bully with kid gloves? You know who's treating the bully with kid gloves? The school. By taking the bully's parent at her word, even though the entire situation sounded fucking dumb. How the hell do you go from "We think the school acted poorly and stupidly" to "Don't punish the bully please!"?
Defending a school for their tactless actions in punishing a victim instead of a harasser is hardly a meaningful substitute. Somehow you think that okaying the status quo of the school acting the way they did is supposed to catalyze action for better anti-bully protection. And how do you think that's going to happen, if chumps like you are going to give terrified schools your consistent, tacit approval?
Of all the parties involved that are affected by this incident, you have this very persistent obsession with defending the school. Because apparently the victim had nothing to lose based on the actions the school took. It's genuinely curious. Are you this indebted to the schooling system in general that any potential hit to their reputation makes you go on your knees, like a battered wife begging the police not to arrest her abusive spouse? I'm starting to see why you defend Trump's feelings so much. You're that much of a sucker for authority.
Your apparent method to kickstart a solution to the problem is to defend the school's actions. Once again, with feeling: What kind of change do you think will happen, if chumps like you keep defending the need for schools to avoid the risk of being sued by playing to the demands of rich assholes?
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No, they took the easiest and ass-coveringly safest route. Your refusal to concede that “easiest” and “best” are not the same thing is why you’re seeing so much resistance to your bullshit.
After all, letting you say your bullshit without pushback would be the easier route to take.
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Yes. The easiest route. The one most likely to keep the district from finding themselves in court. Burning through cash better spent on math books.
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Was there any indication whatsoever that the school handling this in any way besides calling the cops would’ve resulted in a lawsuit?
If not, the school took the coward’s way out of dealing with an admittedly tough situation—and you’re defending that cowardice.
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Thanks for saying what I was thinking
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If you're a cop and you find yourself considering handcuffing a 10 YO kid for any reason resign immediately. You either are not cut out for the job or you are in a position no person should ever tolerate and should simply walk away from that situation. The latter would take no moral courage...no one is going to arrest you or execute you...they'll just replace you. Yes, you may suffer financially but you will not have handcuffed a child. If you are a cop and have no issue with handcuffing a child you are categorically not cut out for the job and you should be terminated immediately. There is no serving or protecting in handcuffing a child. This child has learned a valuable lesson outside of the racial issues...cops are not a friend, they can not be trusted and will do anything their handlers tell them to do...as fascists have done throughout the history of mankind.
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