A 12-year-old girl at Westridge Middle School in Overland Park, Kansas, brandishes her hand as a gun, which draws cops to the school who cuff her and charge her with a felony. Are police justified in taking all threats seriously, or did they overreact and ruin a middle schooler’s life? Shawnee Mission School District says it was a police decision, not theirs. In the wake of high-profile school shootings, will American school children ever see a return to normal childhood?
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31 replies on “Finger Felony: Kansas Cops Cuff 12-Year-Old Girl Who Brandishes Her Hand as a Gun”
I wasn’t there, but…Unless the officer had a serious reason to suspect the implied threat was real and not a joke, he had no reason to act at all. She answered a question, and rude or not, it was her right to speak. That’s quite a bit different than the actual act. It’s called the First Amendment, and Free Speech needs to be honored in schools before it’s honored anywhere else. Lawsuits against schools have caused this whole “zero tolerance” BS. Kids must learn about violence, either through schoolyard play, academic study or in rough games like football and hockey. Violence is real and part of life and they need to know about it. Kids need to learn life lessons on how to deal with bullies and such. Nowadays they cannot. The fear of lawsuits by the schools has created a “zero tolerance” for normal things learned while growing up. There is a difference between playing around, joking and making a serious deadly threat. Or being cute and making a serious threat. If kids don’t learn to play at violence, or what to say when and what not, they never learn the difference between entertainment and reality, which is a problem for most of society these days. Kids always say inappropriate things…the correction process is how they learn. All she learned was “don’t speak your mind,” which is another form of social bullying perpetrated by the system. Secondly, at 12 she is a minor. Even if she had a motive, does she realistically have the opportunity and the means? Does this seriously constitute a deadly force felony in Kansas? Why would you ever cuff a minor who is not a direct threat to herself or to the officer and has merely spoke her mind? Schools have sloughed off ALL responsibility for in-class discipline issues, and this is another problem that society is creating. We can’t spank kids to correct them anymore. We can’t do any discipline in school without a lawsuit. We are letting life-long criminals out of prison for serious crimes while at the same time charging harmless kids with felonies. Sure…sue the daylights out of the PD and the school system for this. Two can play that game. But it’s our own fault for letting it happen. As communities, we need to be outraged and protesting this kind of silliness by the school systems everywhere. But they don’t teach civics anymore, do they? Only victimhood and ultimate control by the government. That’s what 90 percent of teacher believe in these days: control by the government. Maybe if we taught and honored the U.S. Constitution, we’d be a better society.
Cargo cult behaviouralism.
Before you spout nonsense about inept teachers who should be able to handle all things in class, educate yourself.
There is a class in my high school I call the Career Ender. Two years ago, a teacher was injured trying to subdue an out of control special needs child. This child weighed 220 lbs, and was known to throw desks across the room. On the last day of school, this child knocked the teacher out. She has been on disability ever since, unable to work ever again.
Even though most of my colleagues’ politics are suspect, they will do what is best for their students’ safety. Oftentimes students need to be removed from the room for being disruptive, or a danger to himself or others. This is not an educator who cannot handle his/her duties, this is an educator who is looking out for all of her students.
Until you have spent time with, and are responsible for, a classroom full of volatile students, you have no credibility to speak so assertively and definitively on the topic.
Oh. And don’t pull that “kill yourself” bullshit on the TSL FB page. It is considered illegal to coerce someone into violence, and committing an illegal act is one of the only two infractions that will get you banned there.
I hope I have made myself crystal clear.
I was going to comment on this but first- Wait! Stop! There is a conservative part of CO? Who knew?
Scott is the kind of guy who you want as the mayor of your town.
What you see by this example is a result of behaviorist psychology being integrated into the American Educational System. THe implication of ‘we are adjustable’ by external stimulus is at the center of this ‘leftist’ science. It declares that “we”, our consciousness, is not the final decision maker and people can be changed by changing the external situation. This is why no ‘violent thoughts’ must be allowed. What Tripe! BUT it is causing this kind of damage to the next generation. Gag!
Phenomenal insight, Scott!
Thanks, David.
So glad this didn’t happen in Washington.
My son had purchased a cane sword (a walking stick with a short, slender sword inside). The handle, in the shape of a bird head, had a jeweled eye missing from one side. He wanted to take it to a store near his high school for a replacement. He arranged with the principal to bring the sword to the school office, store the sword in the principal’s office, be escorted off the school grounds afterwards and everyone lived to tell the tale.
How nice when sane humans can interact with one another.
Scott, you are an incredibly wise man!
And you are a gracious encourager, Maryanne.
My question is what reason did the teacher have for initiating such a horrendous activity in the first place. I blame teachers for being irresponsible or downright intentional in twisting children’s minds. It’s despicable and shouldn’t be tolerated by any parents.
For Edward: No.
So Steve was saying that now he needs to pretty much tell his son to stop normal, harmless boy behavior because of bad changes in the culture. Of course this is reasonable and probably the easier way to go to avoid him getting in trouble but if all rational people start doing this the culture is going to permanently change for the worse. So at what point is it worth it for people to just tell their kids to act like responsible kids and if they get a strike or something at school it gets addressed immediately with the administration and fought with them to remove the strike for harmless activities that boys do. For as much as we talk about fighting for issues it seems like some basic cultural ones like this we give up on way too easily. I know its more difficult since its your kid who would potentially get in trouble but if the behavior gets normalized again like it used to be it won’t be an issue.
Heinlein’s Crazy Years indeed.
If my parents were transported to today, they’d both be charged as negligent and I and my brothers would be thrown into the system.
My Dad started teaching me to shoot at age 5.
In 2nd grade I was walking 2 or 3 miles home alone and was then home alone until 6 in the evening since both parents worked. Would never be allowed today.
At the age of 8 I was able to buy fireworks from a local stand unaccompanied by an adult. Why were you buying fireworks alone you ask? Because I was attempting to replace the fireworks I had stolen from Dad’s stash in an attempt to blow up, mid-air, my Evel Knievel Gyro Powered Stunt Cycle. Scorched Evel up real good but failed to fool Dad. Caught. Grounded. No police or CPS necessary.
I’ll see Steve’s fireworks war and raise him a wrist rocket war. Yes, my friends and I shot at each other with friggin wrist rockets when we were teenagers. The only reason one or more of us didn’t end up in a hospital or dead was because no one had access to anything approaching accurate ammo. Rocks or dirt clods were all we had and that stuff just went whizzing off in random directions that thankfully never intersected with someone’s head.
I could go on and on with all of the times I was left to my own devices growing up, to take the tools my parents had given me and figure stuff out. Much of that figuring involved doing inadvisable things that ended in varying levels of disaster. But pain is a great teacher and I learned from most of the dumb stuff I did.
So parents, teachers and nanny state social welfare do-gooders, please just let kids be dumb. And silly. And irresponsible. Or they’ll never learn how and when not to be.
Don’t you understand that in this new age, boys cannot be boys, they have to be meek and mild good little girls. While girls are supposed to be nasty boys and bully the weak boys: just to get even.
Once again, the politically correct crowd expects that by simply redefining a word, the thing the word refers to is magically changed to match the definition. Then if that doesn’t happen (and it won’t), they get to reinterpret the laws so no one can say anything they don’t want said.
This is a setup for a social civil war. It is going to get very ugly.
Whew. There’s a lot to unpack here.
First, I don’t have enough information about the student. Did she have behavior problems? Did she have a Behavior Intervention Plan that warranted that phone call to the police? Was she just being a wise ass? I need that info before I pass judgment on the situation.
I have a student in my class who is in a group home because he threatened to kill his sister. Today, he drew a knife on one of his projects. Yes, I escalated the incident to administration, as per his BIP. To judge the end because you didn’t see the beginning is foolhardy.
Steve, I am genuinely surprised your son didn’t use the common sense that you clearly have. In this age of anti bullying and anti violence, saying that you are going to knife someone could have unwanted consequences.
Scott, as I’ve said above, keeping incidents in class is a good idea, to a point. But if a student displays harmful behaviors that have been documented in the past, it should escalate, A teacher can only legally help a student to a certain point. If we see a child in mental distress, we need to find the right people who actually can provide assistance.
Of course, this is all the downhill effect of becoming such an overly litigious society. Garbage like this happens out of fear of a lawsuit.
Stupidest thing I have heard in a while… Again, an Officer (likely scared stupid that he would get ripped for not doing the politically correct thing) did what he did… kinda feel sorry for him (until I hear the whole story, then that might change) He may have had no choice by policy or the principal pressing him.. don’t know yet…. but either way, I agree with y’all on pretty much every point. Bill, I hope they do sue until they can’t bleed no more !! Just sayin’
A 12-Year-old girl who ends a sequence like that with shooting herself should be gently asked in private if she’s OK, if it was just a joke or if she’s really thinking about taking her own life. She should not be arrested for a felony,
Not that I required evidence, but I am now convinced that that Scott, Steven, and Bill are adults! LOL
Scott, how the hell did you get a job as a school bus driver after you had brought a gun to school?😄
Unclear.
I still think there has to be more to this story than I so far been let out.
As to the handle in the classroom vs. going to the principal or higher I submit the following and await Cheryl’s input.
My wife just retired after 30+ years of teaching. As a soft landing she is working PT helping kids at the low end of reading. We were discussing this story last night and she says, oh I brought this home to show you. This was a FLOW CHART of how to handle discipline for various issues. It specifically note what can be handled in the classroom and what must be elevated to the office. This incident would clearly be in the office side of the FLOW CHART. ( This is real, not a Dilbert cartoon).
I will ask her if I can share it outside of the school system.
If so I will do a separate blog post.
The point is, as Scott said about the bus driver, the kids know that the teacher has little authority.
This teacher should have kept this in the classroom, but probably has guidelines that say not to do so.
We also have levels of infractions that go from classroom intervention to administrative, and beyond.
Ralph, I provided a more in depth comment above. Thanks for the heads up, friend!
You missed a great joke for the lead image – you should have used a screen grab of the famous South Park boy band, “Finger Bang”!
Scott, excellent point on keeping the control and the discipline at the level of the teacher, or in your case, the bus driver. You are absolutely right. For the most part, kids will not listen to or show any respect to those who should be in authority of them but refuse to use that authority. In most cases, they don’t understand chain of command. They only understand what happens right in front of them.
It might have been a “teaching moment” but certainly not an incident requiring a felony charge. Our so called public education is totally out of control and should be sold to the highest bidder.
Get the government out of philosophy, education, science, religion, and the economy, and anything else other than what it does best: crime! It is uncontrolled and unlimited government that is the problem.
Why in the world is the teacher asking their students which five of their classmates they would kill to start with?! The kid was prompted by the teacher, and the arrest over a finger gun is beyond stupid.
When I was little, my mom took me to Knott’s Berry Farm. I was dressed up in a red cowgirl outfit and had my cap gun. When we were on the stagecoach ride, there were robbers! I shot one of them with my cap gun and he faked the most awesome death. It was great fun because even at my young age, I knew it was just play. How sad it is that kids can’t have that kind of fun anymore where they also learn that they can fight the bad guy.
I don’t think it was the teacher, but another student.
Thanks for the clarification, Scott. I would still argue that she was prompted.