Student Arrested For Classroom Texting 1246
A 14-year-old Wisconsin girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to stop texting during a high school math class. The girl denied having a phone when confronted by a school safety officer, but a female cop found it after frisking her. The Samsung Cricket was recovered "from the buttocks area" of the teenager, according to the police report. The girl was banned from school property for a week, and is scheduled for an April 20 court appearance for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. I applaud the adults involved for their discretion and temperance in this heinous case of texting without permission.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:1, Informative)
Unfortunately you're all too right -- calling the police is about the only option. Teachers aren't allowed to embarass or "harm" students, corporal punishment is banned, hell you can't even send them to the principle's office because that's "embarassing!"
Re:Laaaawwwsuuuuit (Score:2, Informative)
And no mention of a warrant >> Charges thrown out...
Why would you need a warrant? She was arrested on disorderly conduct and frisked. Unless something has changed recently, it's standard procedure to frisk the person you're arresting.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:4, Informative)
You can send a kid to the principle's office in every school I've been to and worked in. I know that's only 7 schools but you said "can't."
When I was in HS, 1st time offenders always got sent to their guidance counselors. You'ld have to be doing something unsafe/dangerous/illegal to have the cops called on you.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What else can you do? (Score:1, Informative)
Or even the Principal's office!
Re:What else can you do? (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, this is Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, everyone wears hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people.
For crying out loud, Wisconsin is a state that mandates bannisters and staircases be built to specific specs just so little kids can grip them. If they regulate the petty things, they'll regulate the sweaty things.
Hang on... (Score:5, Informative)
Before everyone goes spouting off about how we're becoming a police state, has anyone (including submitter) bothered to read the linked police report? The cop refers to "prior negative contacts" with this person for both him and the administration. The chick ignores the teachers, lies to the cops, and brazenly continues to text in class. It's too bad the cops had to waste cycles getting involved, but judging from the police report the school personnel were at the end of their rope.
You reap what you sow (Score:5, Informative)
Snowflake had hidden the 'phone in her underwear so having Police present is the only way to avoid a lawsuit.
Re:Mandated (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently you did not read the criminal complaint. The student was "known to the security officer" as a problem , and had "negative contacts" with the administrators in the past. Sounds to me like a problem child, who continued to act out, from a broken home, had repeatedly ignored the rules, assuming that she could skate out of all trouble. And since it was school she probably could, but in this case, they decided to file the charges. Finally she is forced to have a little accountability for her actions.
Not only did she lie about her actions, she repeatedly gave false numbers to the school for contacting her parents, and wasted several hours of the school employees time. She ought to be billed by the school district for the amount of time wasted by her.
Treat teenagers like adults they act like adults. Don't and they will always act like little children.
Re:schools have rules for a reason (Score:3, Informative)
The police report stated that she was arrested for lying to a police officer. It also stated that she had "prior negative contacts" with the school administration and the local police.
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately that's what happens when you give kids most of the rights of grown-ups, but none of the responsibilities.
Re:Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal? (Score:3, Informative)
This lying crap-weasel of a girl needs a life-lesson that apparently hasn't been taught by her parents.
This is a rather nation-wide problem as more and more parents neglect to teach their children to behave properly. And this wasn't exactly a first-time incident for this girl as you should have read in the report issued. I remember the first and only time my oldest son stole some markers from another student. Sure, I bought him his own set of markers, but I also made him return the markers to the other student in person and apologize in front of the entire class. This action was confirmed by his teacher. My son is almost 18 now and he either never stole again or he got MUCH better at it as there was never another incident like that again.
Parents who don't teach their children are delegating that authority to the "real world" and most of the time, the real world does not teach lessons as pleasantly.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:3, Informative)
I was told by a friend long ago that missing apostrophes are less offensive than spurious ones so when in doubt miss them out!
The city of Birmingham, near where I live, in the south of the UK has decided to drop all apostrophes from signs. Who am I to argue with a budget and population that size!
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, well now it's blame everyone else because the precious little snowflake can't possibly be wrong. Even being disobedient in class is ok, because school doesn't matter.
F*cking kids today should count their blessings. My teacher could've walloped me right upside the head and my mother probably would've only double-checked if it was a big mark, I couldn't get away with sh*t in school. Should I be caught, I knew I was dead meat. Teaches you quite a lesson about reality to learn that if you f*ck up, you've got to pay the penalty.
Kids today should get a dose of that. You f*ck up, you get kicked out of class. You fail, guess what YOU failed, not the teacher.
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:3, Informative)
That's interesting. When did "passing notes" or "not submitting to authority figures" become against the law?
The police don't exist to simply put people in line (though sadly some people seem to think that). They exist to enforce laws, and protect the people.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:2, Informative)
Dude, they're called " building codes [google.com]". They regulate the petty things that can kill people if they're not thought about, and they're hardly unique to Wisconsin.
Re:Mandated (Score:5, Informative)
She then proceeded to lie to the officer regarding the phone number that could be used to contact her parents. After eventually getting in contact (presumably by requesting the information from the school records), her mother was contacted and informed that her daughter would be searched. At that point, the female officer (who had been sent) proceeded to perform the search. Where the phone which belonged to her father was found.
This is not the case of an officer immediately arresting her because she was texting. It was an officer who arrested her after he confirmed that several people had seen her texting despite being asked not to. He even stated that her arrest was partially due to her continued lying.
Totally bogus (Score:3, Informative)
It's pretty clear there was no justification for the search. The disorderly conduct charge was invented specifically to "justify" the search as a search incident to arrest.
Wisconsin law provides "Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud, or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor."
Texting in class doesn't fall under any of the listed categories, so already you have to use the catch-all "otherwise disorderly". But what really makes it clear is that no arrest was made after the conduct was described and investigated. Instead, the arrest was made after she refused to turn over her phone, showing it was merely a pretext for which to justify a warrantless search.
Re:Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal? (Score:3, Informative)
suing over detention [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal? (Score:5, Informative)
Cite an example of this ever happening for similarly-mundane infractions.
If [stpns.net] you [nospank.net] insist. [nwi.com]
Those're from the first page of a Google search.
Re:Mandated (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking as an American...
History is rarely as simple or concise as one-line rallying cries would have you believe.
Re:Mandated (Score:3, Informative)
Actions have consequences.
Yes and consequences of this action should be either detention or in school suspension.
If she had surrendered the phone upon the 1st request by the campus officer then detention would be appropriate. Since she continued to claim that she did not have a phone and further concealed it. She escalated it beyond detention or in-school suspension. I think that a fine is correct in this case. If you read the transcript of the officer's report, this student is known to the administration as a "problem".
Re:Mandated (Score:2, Informative)
You sure are missing something... like, the whole story.
Re:Mandated (Score:3, Informative)
If you were a native American. The white people were mostly British subjects. It was their government and as legitimate as any other.
Re:Mandated (Score:4, Informative)
This absurdity I would assume stems from what's called "resist, obstruct or delay" around here, but similar statues are common across the country. Basically this gem of the legal system makes it illegal to lie to a cop, or not give them any information they ask for. Apparently the right to remain silent doesn't apply until you're actually under arrest.
I personally have had the misfortune to be arrested and charged with this. I was at a friends house, and was taking a nap on the couch while they had gone out to the store. They came home while I was asleep and didn't wake me. I awoke to a loud pounding on the door right next to the couch. I got up and opened the door to see a cop standing there. They asked if my friend was home. I said "I don't think so" and looked over my shoulder. While my head was turned the cop said "I'm going to look around" and walked right past me into the house and into my friends bedroom. They found him laying on the bed and arrested him (he had a warrant for a failure to appear), and then walked back into the living room, looked at me and said "I'm arresting you for resist obstruct or delay" and handcuffed me and took me to jail where I spent the next 2 days.
I got the charge dropped after shelling $600 out on a lawyer and doing 24 hours of community service, all for saying "I don't think so."
Re:more to do with the refusing (Score:3, Informative)
One thing you have to understand, this is not the school and legal system I grew up in nor my parents grew up in.
I am guessing here but what probably happened, is that the twit was cheating on her Math test. Teacher caught her. Twit hid phone. So now it is Teachers word vs hers. In my day you would get sent to Principals office, teacher would inform of infraction, and punishment would then be done, probably just a talking to or perhaps a suspension if serious enough. Now a days, if twit gets suspended, and no proof, then school gets sued by parents.
Teachers do not have right to "frisk" students. See parental suing above. So what does teacher do, call the cops and have them frisk her, find phone, proof of cheating. Normally this would end the same way where the Principle would be the one giving out punishment. However refusing to comply with a Teacher is one thing, refusing to comply with police is another. It could be that once an incident has taken place the police are obligated to follow through and have no choice. It could be that they just pissed off the officer. More likely they are just using the incident to scare the bajesus out the twit in hopes of impressing on her some respect for authority. Who knows, not enough detail to determine. Anyway it is likely the report is sensationalistic and they just want to grab a headline, odds are it is really nothing.
Re:more to do with the refusing (Score:1, Informative)
It's a misdemeanor. Some juveniles benefit from a scary court appearance. I don't know about Wisconsin, but in some states, certain misdemeanors are wiped from record after a short period, and if she's under 16, it might be expunged after she's 18.