Posted on 12/11/2004 1:12:17 PM PST by flutters
A 10-year-old girl was placed in handcuffs and taken to a police station because she took a pair of scissors to her elementary school. School district officials said the fourth-grade student did not threaten anyone with the 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that considers scissors to be potential weapons.
Administrators said they were following state law when they called police Thursday, and police said they were following department rules when they handcuffed Porsche Brown and took her away in a patrol wagon.
"My daughter cried and cried," said her mother, Rose Jackson. "She had no idea what she did was wrong. I think that was way too harsh."
Police officers decided the girl hadn't committed a crime and let her go.
However, school officials suspended her for five days. Administrators will decide at a hearing whether she may return to class, or be expelled to a special disciplinary school.
The scissors were discovered while students' belongings were being searched for property missing from a teacher's desk.
School district officials have promised a crackdown on unruly students this year, and new policies give administrators the power to expel students for infractions as minor as violating the dress code, chronic tardiness or habitual swearing.
Administrators say the steps are needed to regain control over a notoriously unruly school system, but some parents have complained that discipline has been overly harsh and that school officials have been too quick to call police about minor problems.
Lucky she wasn't carrying a Bible.
Philadelphia
I guess her parents own a Porsche.
My elementary teachers always provided scissors. I guess things have changed.
The Police State is right around the corner and coming fast.
Everyone responsible for this fiasco deserves a month in jail. The teacher, the principal, the police, and whoever wrote these laws.
Methinks the story contains the seed of its own explanation. If I had school age children, you can bet your boots that they would be aware that big trouble awaits anyone taking any sharp implement to school.
Or mashed potatoes in the shape of a gun.
Or aspirin
When our school system is run by functional morons (at all levels) one must make conscious and deliberate compensations.
You have simply GOT to be shi**in' me........
They'd have a couple hundred pounds of VERY pissed off Dad standing on the principal's desk, lifting his sorry a** out of his chair, hand to God.
Well, that is a far cry from the little blunt-nosed scissors we used in school when I was 10. Wonder why she felt she needed to bring these to school? It's way harsh for police to handcuff the girl. But, I wonder if there's more to this story than is apparent on the surface.
You'd think this was a straightforward case of insane school administrators, but I don't trust a mother who names a child Porsche. (Or Lexus, for that matter ...)
I think there's more to this!
Was she running with the scissors?
henderson field wrote:
The Police State is right around the corner and coming fast.
...........................................................
I think we have at least four years of conservatie executive and congressional leadership to reverse those injustices. Can we hope for a trickle down effect in politics as well as the economy?
I dispute the use of the word "functional".
I would kill anyone who handcuffed my 10 year old grandaughter.
Insanity!
This girl will have real "issues" with authority in years to come.
I think its time to have a few principals perp walked out of some of the schools in handcuffs and waist chains just to send a message we are tired of our children being abused by people we pay to teach them.
This has gone too far, and a pencile could be pronounced just as dangerous as anthing else.
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