quote
OCALA - A 10-year-old girl is facing a felony weapons charge after she brought a kitchen knife to school with her steak lunch, the child's uncle said today.
unquote

This has got to stop.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-bk-kitchenknife121507,0,7777198.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout
&
http://www.local6.com/news/14857286/detail.html

Can't even eat in peace anymore.

are we talking about knife as in:


or


cause if it's the former, the school admins are the ones who should be arrested.

Even if you are talking about the latter (real steak knife) the girl should not have been arrested. Maybe the knife should have been taken away and given to her parents and she should be informed that the school policy is not to allow such knives. In any either case I think it is ridiculous to disallow knives in school with the threat of a felony arrest.

Ya it is another case of the Government protecting us from ourselves.

Dave

In some states, CA for example, it is legally impossible for a child under the age of 14 to commit a crime, unless it can be proved that the child knew right from wrong. But, given the world we live in today, if I were to send my kid to school with a steak, it would be cut into bite sized pieces at home. EVERYONE knows that you can not take knives of any kind to school anymore...

And to think I had a Swiss Army Knife in my pocket every day at school as my keychain and never got hassled about it. (High school class of ‘97 for those of you who are wondering when it was.)

I think it's all hype. They won;t do anything to a young kid for bringing a knife to cut her food with....not anything criminal anyway. Unless, of course, her lunchbox was empty and she tried to hack on somebody. There's always a writer out there who knows how to get us excited......

You are probably right, as far as the law is concerned. Bet she still get suspended tho. Mom and dad should have known better...

Local news this morning was showing a cheap fine serrated steak knife, i don't know it was "the" knife or just one they are using for show on the news. The arresting officer was interviewed and he stated that the kid was not handcuffed but was taken to a juvenile center for evaluation to determine in the child had the intent to bring a knife to school to harm someone or whether she just brought the knife for slicing and dicing lunch. The school officials declined interviews but stated that the kid would have to be expelled. And the reporter added that the kid would most likely be charged with bringing a knife to school.

The rules around here seem to be different for each county, the county i live in changed the zero tolerance policy after a high school honor student with a spotless background was caught with a knife and expelled. He had stayed up all night with a sick horse on the family ranch and forgot that he had a pocket knife in his pocket. After the story hit the news, the public outcry was enough so that the school board now uses a case by case basis to determine if the kid needs to be expelled.

I can see them holding up this knife - 10" blade, tanto point, black coated, serrations, lanyard with small silver skull hanging from it, maybe dripping with blood. They don;t have the knife the kid brought, the police or school administration has that one, but they need to put something up there....right?

Years ago I was watching the news about this guy who marched into a middle school or something with a baseball bat and chased the principal around. Somwehere in the midwest I think. In the background, upper-right corner of the screen, right behind the female news anchor, was a picture of a semi-auto pistol. SHe didn;t mention it or refer to it, it just stayed there throughout her reporting of the incident.

The next day, I was asking co-workers if they'd seen the report. Of those that did, not one noticed what was in the upper portion of the TV screen. They just remember it was a horrible incident and the guy "needed to be hanged", or something similar.

Ahhh the power of picture show media. THe danger is, they KNOW how powerful and influential they are.

OH! One more thing: You don;t call the police when a 10 YEAR OLD KID does something wrong like that!!!! You call the parents! That's not a police matter! What's with these pea brains that run our public schools????? People like this don;t just accidently "end up" running our schools, you have to pro-actively go out and search them out!

"Firstly God created idiots. That was for practice. Then He created School Boards." - Mark Twain

I have to say that, aside from the feminazi teacher who tends to dominate my memory, my elementary and high school was awesome when it came to common sense regarding stuff like this. One former teacher was particularly awesome. If you went hunting over the weekend or somethin like that, and the next day found a pocket knife, or even a shotgun shell in your jacket pocket, you could take it to this teacher and he'd wrap it in a manilla envelope and a top of packing tape and you could get it at the end of the day. The way he figured, even if you met someone on the bus who pissed you off, by the time you got through all the tape and paper, you'd either be home or cooled off enough to just let it go. After he left, you could still take stuff to the principal and he'd hold it till the end of the semester or until a parent came to claim it. If another teacher caught you with it, it was up to them, but i doubt you'd have been arrested and charged with felony weapon possession. One time after going to a carnival, i had a tiny cap gun and a few caps that i'd won in my pocket. I was fishin for a pen, and the gun falls out. The idiot next to me picks it up and shoots a cap. Yeah it got confiscated, but all we got disciplined for was disrupting class. Everyone involved was smart enough to realize that an inch long carnival prize is a toy, not a deadly weapon, and if an Alabama kid has a SAK, it's probably not because he's plannin a murder.

On the other hand ...

As a father of an 11 year old and a 12 year old, both of which have handled knives for a long time and each own several. Both my kids know VERY well that they simply can't take a knife to school and that if they did there would be severe penalties.

This isn't just school policy, but the law. I teach my children to respect the law ... wether we agree or not.

Taking a steak knife to school was a stupid move.

Ken

Yes, Ken, I agree, but "stupid" from an adult's or more mature teenager's perspective, not a 10 year old's. I agree it's wrong and that the kid will learn from it, but the handling of it is another matter.

ok, well I think I should have my say, im in middle school. My school is pretty lax and chill about all of this, my friend even carries a sak on her key chain. just a small one with only a blade tho. But If I accidentally brought one i could probly just keep it in my backpack and no one would no. One of my teachers was an eagle scout, one is a total out doorsy person and one works on a farm so i don't think it would be that bad if I accidentally brought one, as long as it isn;t my machete. (:

But 10 year olds know this too. I was a Den Leader for my son's Cub Scout den and a Girl Scout leader for my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I started teaching both groups about knives when they were 9 years old. They definitely knew not to take a knife to school.

Now, on the other hand, I can easily imagine one accidently leaving a folding knife in a backpack - after a weekend outing. I encourage my troops to use separate packs for Scouts and school to avoid that happening.

"Intent" doesn't have anything to do with the law anymore, right? Like justice.

So many parents complain about the schools, but then just keep sending their kids back there. Stupid is as stupid does.

Sue

If we apply that kind of logic to somthing like this then maybe we should lower the age of consent to 10. Children are expected to make mistakes, we all learned more from our mistakes than our succeses. If there had been any threats, referances, or even a slight inuendo about a knife before she was caught then I would say a crime had been committed. People need to understand there huge difference between a mistake and a crime.

I can remember in my High School - they would confiscate a frizbee (NOt kidding) but have a pocket knife? No problem - a bunch of kids were taght how to sharpen them in shop class

(There was a reason for the frizbee rule (kids playing in the street, not paying attention to cars), but it became a no tolerance issue, which got dumb, fast)

My school was the same way. I graduated in 1991. We all carried pocket knives, I has a cousin who carried a big fixed blade in his boot and would pull it out and clean under his nails and no one cared.
Then again we got to target shoot .22's in gym class (I was though to not know how to hold a gun because I was turning it sideways studying it and comparing its bolt action to my semi auto at home).
I was helping the shop teacher with an after school activity shortly after getting my license so I was allowed to drive to school but couldn't drive to where we were going so I rode with him and he saw a ground hog in a field behind the school and pulled his rifle out from under the seat of his truck and shot it.
We never had a stabbing or shooting at school either. We had one student shot one weekend by her boyfriend whose parents had recently moved from a city.

VERY well said!!!

I suspect that the girl didn't even consider the rule, because she didn't consider the knife a weapon, just a utensil for food, like a spoon for soup.

Sue

Pretty much. Well said Susan.

Dave

There ya go! It's a utensil. Call the COPS!!!! Somebody get Channel 9 on the phone!!!!

Humpheads

according to the current handbook for my old highschool, criminal possession of a weapon is defined as "knowingly possessing or carrying, with intent to cause harm or threaten to cause harm, any weapon or potentially deadly object."
Key part of that is the "intent to harm or threaten" part. That means a reasonable person can decide the knife in your lunchbox, or the lone shell in your hunting jacket was not going to be used in a massacre and send you on your way. And if they think you WERE going to try and kill your peers with the Squirt on the keyring in your car, they have to prove that was your intent. The problems start when you make a Zero Tolerance Policy regarding ANYTHING. That leaves no room for reason. You break this rule and you're out, end of story, no questions asked.
I read stories like this and it just makes me more determined that I don't want to live in the city, cause that's where all these crazies seem to hang out. You never hear about a kid getting hauled away in handcuffs over a pocket knife in the rural south. Ask anyone down here and you'll get the same response: "Man, that's gotta be tha dumbest thing I ever heard. The ones who called the cops are the ones who aughta be arrested for wastin the officers time and terrorizin that poor kid."

"That leaves no room for reason."

REASON??? This is America! Reason flew out the window years ago, just ahead of Justice.

Sue

Reason........ we don't need no stinkin reason. We have lawyers and such folks to reason for us and keep us safe from those nasty ten year olds that just wanna eat and the other nasties out there .

Soon Children will be arrested for having a sharp pencil in their bookbag, or on their desk. Sigh

Hi probablylost,

As the 10 year girl has admitted that she has brought the steak knife into school under her own admission on a number of separate occasions previously, during her police statement whilst under arrest, do you think she could be facing life imprisonment under the 3 strikes rule especially if the offences have occurred within a 1000 yards of a church?
Sounds as if this 10 year girl should have said no, when her rights were being read out by the arresting LEO.

Ignorance is no defence against the Law.

What legally constitutes a "weapon"? I remember reading an interview in Playboy with actor James Garner; he talked about a case of road rage where he was assaulted by another driver, who knocked him to the ground and proceeded to kick him several times. The guy was convicted of "assault with a deadly weapon" - his shoes.

I can understand that ANYTHING is legally a weapon if used as such. And I understand that a firearm is treated differently, but I also understand that the laws governing firearms address firearms specifically. (e.g. robbery with a firearm is different from robbery with a weapon).

Why is a child with a steak knife legally considered different from a child with a softball bat or a child wearing shoes? All three could be used as weapons, and all three have perfectly benign uses which are more common.

Do the laws in these jurisdictions specifically single out knives as being weapons by assumption?

My kids' school district has a Parent/Student Handbook that has a "Weapons" section that reads as follows:

A student who uses, possesses, controls, or transfers a weapon, or any object that can reasonably be considered, or looks like, a weapon, shall be expelled for at least one calendar year, but no more than two calendar years. The Superintendent may modify the expulsion period and the School Board may modify the Superindentent's determination, on a case-by-case basis. A "weapon" means possession, use, control, or transfer of: (1) any gun, rifle, shotgun, a weapon as defined by Section 921 of Title 18, United States Code, firearm as defined in Section 1.1 of the Firearm Owners Identification Act, or use of a weapon as defined in Section 24-1 of the Criminal Code, (2) any other object if used or attempted to be used to cause bodily harm, including but not limited to, knives, brass knuckles, billy clubs, or (3) "look-alikes," of any weapon as defined above. Any items such as a baseball bat, pipe, bottle, lock, stick, pencil, and pen is considered to be a weapon if used or attempted to be used to cause bodily harm. The Building Principal or designee shall notify the criminal justic or juvenile delinquency system of any student who brings a firearm or weapon to school."

Section 921 of Title 18 of United States Code (firearms only):
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/44/sections/section_921.html

Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card Act (firearms only):
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1657&ChapAct=430 ILCS 65/&ChapterID=39&ChapterName=PUBLIC+SAFETY&ActName=Firearm+Owners+Identification+Card+Act.

Illinois Criminal Code, Section 24-1 (this one related to knives):
http://law.onecle.com/illinois/720ilcs5/24-1.html

When a school reaches the point where it has to use technical wording so complex that probably 3/4 of their teachers wouldn;t be able to read, it becomes clear where the problem lies.

We receive what we ask for. We asked for "them"....and we got them.

Back in the 60's, hair picks were deadly. Anything pretty much can be used as a weapon, even a pencil. Common sense needs to prevail over fear mongering in schools IMHO.

Dave

Update, on the news yesterday, the girl will not be charged with a crime for bringing a knife to school. She is still suspended from school though.

Suspended, and with a suspension on her permanent school records. Not to mention the emotional trauma. Sheesh

She won't be charged???? This was actually being considered....it was an issue??? Completely unbelievable....

I ask again: Where do we find these incompetent imbeciles and, more importantly, once we dredge them up, find it within our wisdom to put them in charge of our children??

The fact that is being suspended is the same as being charged, tried, and found guilty without the benefit of legal or due process. Dopes!!! I'm glad I homeschool my son.

If her parents send her BACK to that asylum after what they did, they're even more stupid than the school officials.

That entire situation was insane.

"Where do we find these incompetent imbeciles..."?

Like child molesters, incompetents tend to get themselves put into situations where they can do the most damage. Big on BS, low on intelligence.

Sue

Charging her, at her age, would have been stupid.

Maybe, if suspended, she and her parents can kill time reading the student handbook I'll bet she was given at the start of the year. In it I'll bet it says something about not bringing knives to school, no matter what the intended reason. The times they are a changin'...

Well people are getting paranoid at our schools. I mean ya, the girl shouldn't have brought a steak knife, how about dealing with the punk kids selling dope and carrying a 9mm? I mean really....

Dave

I understand what you are saying, but, given the violence that is happening in our schools today, weapons (other than the baseball bats that I assume are still used in PE. Do they still have PE?), have got to be banned. Why to most schools, at least in CA, have police officers stationed there EVERY day? Because of bad things happening to our kids. So this girl only planned on cutting up her lunch. You can not have a rule that says knives are OK for cutting up lunch, but not OK for cutting up classmates. Rules are rules, you do the crime, you do the time. She, and her parents, should have known better...

Totally true, but California is its own nation anyway...They wanted to outlaw spanking....

Dave

"...California is its own nation anyway..."

Which is why we are currently in Arizona. Yeah Sheriff Joe!!!

Every pair of jeans I wore to school in the late 70's/early 80's had the imprint of a Swiss Army Knife in the left rear pocket, I EDC'ed it everyday/everywhere (even had it it my suit pocket when I got married in 1988). It was for cutting stuff, hunting, fishing and opening stubby bottled beers before twist tops.

These are much different times and now that I have kids in school I guess I agree with the strict school weapons policy: it just needs to be applied with some common sence.

Mike

Yea, it isn;t like the girl didn;t violate aschool policy, unintentionally or otherwise. It doesn;t mean that maybe the parents don;t need to come down for a chat. This is good stuff.

But do we entrust our children to adults who panick and call Fox news and CSI crime scene investigators before they even know if it's plastic or steel?

I'm the parent they called down because my little girl had a knife at school. I'm hearing them and so will my daughter. But if these clowns called me, I'd be yawning while listening to them and cleaning my fingernails with a fixed blade!

A ten year old girl. Probably had a lunchbox with a princess on it or something. And a lunch knife inside.

Let's have a group panic hug.........

"You can not have a rule that says knives are OK for cutting up lunch, but not OK for cutting up classmates."

Yeah, INTENT went down the toilet with a lot of other thingsn didn't it? Today in America, there is ONLY the letter of the law, no intent, no reason, no common sense.

We have the idiot country that we da*n well deserve.

Sueic

Uh Sue?..... in order to more fully understand your emotion on this issue, would that "*" take the place of an "r" or an "m"?

Your choice.

Sue

Unfortunatly, it's not only your country. Believe me it can be worse.

It's like we don't trust laws and their punishments anymore, so anything that could be used in a crime is now outlawed no matter what it is. I can't wait until they can read thoughts and intents. They better build larger prisons... Man this incident gets me worked up....

Dave

That is probably true. It used to legal to drink and drive in TX too as long as you weren't drunk.... :-)

Dave

Yeah but at least her steak lunch was safe from any kids who wanted to try and take it from her.




sorry, couldn't let that one go by.


I look back at all this and remember the guy in high school that had a machete in his locker and the time I had to pull out my Buck 110 at school to fend off some kid who pulled his knife to try and take my lunch money.

Ah, the good ol'days.

When I was a kid in Cub Scouts, on meeting days we wore our uniforms to school, including the knives, hanging from that little snap on our belts. On the other days the knife was in our pockets. I do not recall anyone every using a knive to do more than clean a fingernail (not something kids do much of), or whittling on a stick durning recess...

Yes, we can and do. Just like you can buy a gun and shoot it at the range or hunt with it, but you can't shoot your ex-wife no matter how much she deserves it. You can also buy a car, but it's not okay to run over your neighbor with it. If a ten year old wants to stab a classmate, a #2 pencil in the gut would do as much or more damage than a steak knife. We cannot ban every tool that could be used to cause harm.

You are correct about the other things as weapons part, but we gotta start someplace. In a controlled environment like a school, in todays world you have to have a hard and fast rule, in this case NO KNIVES. There are already rules (laws) about cutting people up, but given the world we live in today, a "knife for cutting food is OK, but don't bring one to cut classmates" rule just won't work...

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes."

Thomas Jefferson.

At the same time, I gave 4 SAKs to boys aged 13-10 this Christmas. Each of them was told it does not go to school. Although, I know I brought mine to school.

Thanks.

I agree with you about allowing people to carry knives and about "growing into manhood." I won't tell people and don't mention it in my office, but a knife is with me most of the time. I've brought one with me to work today and pretty much everyday for a quite a while, a multitool. A knife has gotten me out of trouble, cutting lines on ships and other vessels.

I also know schools just won't permit knives, even one so small it could be a key chain.

Their father carries a knife most of the time, so I think outside of school, they will be allowed to get some experience with their knives.

You know OBG, as much as I regret to in this case, I am compelled to agree with you. It is a very sad statement that public schools must have such a rule and others like it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the practicality of the thing, but from a wholly litigious point of view, it simply can be no other way now.

Nonetheless, such a rule would do absolutely nothing to prevent any child or grandchild of mine from continuing to carry a knife or other self defense implement with them to school. They will simply no longer use it in public except for certain conditions when such a rule is irrelevent. It will remain that way until the public school system can guarantee unequivically my children's safety. I am not too worried about that happening anytime soon either. I am worried that someday they may be compelled to submit to a search of their person/possessions, which they will refuse, whether they have a knife or not. Lord help the person who physically forces my kin to submit, for I will show no mercy on that day.

" we gotta start someplace. In a controlled environment like a school, in todays world you have to have a hard and fast rule, in this case NO KNIVES."

No knives.
No forks.
No scissors.
No firewood.
No frozen dead cats.
No icicles.
No metal rulers.
No drawing compasses.
No Exacto knives.
No pointy pencils.
No Bic type pens.
No antennas on cell phones.
No boots.
No long fingernails or fake ones.
No barrettes.
No shoelaces.
No scarves.
No sweatshirt hood strings.
No pretty rocks for Show-&-Tell.
No bamboo shish kabob skewers
No nails in wood shop.

So where does it stop? Lawmakers, living in their little fantasy world, would like to think that they can legislate protection from danger everywhere, in every place, under all conditions. People with a few functioning brain cells know this isn't possible.

Maybe there needs to be a national Protest the Public School Week, and pull your kids out. Your children are a souce of income for the school district and administration, and nothing else.

Sue

Why not? It worked for several thousand years. Drop this business about "They're not to blame because of how they grew up.", etc., and start enforcing the laws already on the books.

"...It worked for several thousand years..."

Unfortunately, this is a new world. And the current "laws" on the books say no knives at school. I don't necessarily agree with it (I carried knives to school in my day), but you gotta do what the rules say...

I prefer to play by the rules until caught. My grandfather told me quite a few times "It is sometimes easier to get forgiveness than permission" I carried a knife to school once when very young (2nd grade) and it was taken away from me and given back to my parents. I was not allowed to carry and use a knife for a long while after that.

In high school I carried a Leatherman everyday, until the principal found out about it and he and i had a conference in his office. I was told not to bring it back to school and therefore no one knew when i started carrying it again or about the small pocketknife I carried. If you don't advertise then no one will know.

We've got to do what the rules say, but we don't have to sit by and let the rules stand. If enough people tell our school boards and legislators these rules or laws are crock enough times maybe we can start carrying knives to school again. I feel better giving students can responsibly of carrying a pocket knife then putting off adulthood until no-one acts like a responsible adult. I fear that we're almost at that point to day though.

Rules were made to be broken.

I see three choices: follow the rules; or try to get away with breaking them and risk enduring punishment.

As far as chaning those rules, you will be shoveling manure against the proverbial tide. The tides come in and flooded everything here in New York. No way could you get such a rule passed. Of course, this is also a place where you will get looks as if you have three heads if anyone found out you were an NRA member. A campaign would be few screaming against millions. Still, someone needs to be screaming.

Litigation imbalances rational thought. Even if the majority of the community wanted to make it okay for kids to bring knives to school, the legal system now would compel the administration to keep the rule banning them.

Again, it has nothing to do with practicality. It is a perceived risk issue now, and once defined, is seldom ever mooted. You'd have to just about go through tort refom before you could change such rules.

CHARGES DROPPED

STORY HERE

What took so long for sanity to set in?

Why were the police called in the first place? Sanity isn;t the issue.... it's fear and common sense. These people should be maxed out at running a pop stand.

In CA, at least in Fresno, crime capital of the world, Fresno PD has an officer assigned to many of the high school EVERY day, and they get involved in anything that goes on during a school day...

The little town of Las Cruces, NM has the same thing....officers at every high school. That's their job....every day.

We do not have police "assigned" at our High School daily, but have unarmed school security, mostly retired police officers.

I suspect they have a written policy from the higher-ups (and their attorneys) that specifically spell out what action they have to follow and when.

If they want to keep their job and have any future in the system then they have to follow those rules.

I don't know for a fact if that is why they took the action they did but it is consistent with other bureaucracies I've observed.

They're in a no-win situation because one time they follow common sense and don't call the cops and something bad happens then the press will be asking "why didn't you follow your own policies?".

Y'know, a lot of policy enforcement got done in the woodshed. Too bad it got tore down a long time ago.

"Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense"

Not my quote (unfortunately), but oh so true.

JimJr

Way out in the country we were behind the times and that kind of punishment was still an option while I was part way through school.
Though today I don't think I would allow it, the rules are left too much to interpretation and there is no more clear cut right and wrong so I'd be afriad my kids might get the punishment for something that I didn't think was wrong. Have that issue with my MIL, she will punish for things that annpy her rather than things that are wrong and now gets mad that we won't leave our kids in her care.

"... my MIL... now gets mad that we won't leave our kids in her care."

OMG! Someone is protecting their kids against something that matters! GO, EUGENE!!!

Sue

Hence the rules...

Link

I'm still going to have to say the rules against not stabbing your classmates and burning them with a torch pretty much cover the situation.

Try as you will, you just can't legislate psychos and other vicious people out of the human race. Even when it is obvious that certain people are a danger, nothing will be done, because they and other criminals have more rights than the victims do.

Sue

You are right Sue. Nothing gets me more upset than when they pass laws after some phychos commit some crime instead of dealing with the real issue.

Dave

The laws in question aren't there to legislate/regulate the psychos, but to lay blame on the administrators of the school should the psychos do something. Since the administrators haven't got anywhere near the resources it takes to detect and deter individual carry, they are compelled to impose zero tolerence policy. This very generalized policy does nothing to prevent the psychos from doing what they are going to do, because the administrator still doesn't have the resources he needs to enforce the policy completely. However, it does limit his culpability in court or before his superiors by allowing him to claim they did everything "within his power" to prevent such an event. Unfortunately, that means then they have to enforce the zero tolerance policy any and every time an event that meets the generalized criteria occurs, otherwise they risk re-assuming culpability.

We have an almost uncountable number of such regulations/laws on the books that have no effect on stopping willful acts of violence, but hold those in authority accountable for the acts of psychos, unless they exercise "due diligence".

Ain't our legal system great?!!!

I'd best not comment on the above, or Doug and Chris might be a little angry with me!!