Posted on 02/11/2006 4:11:34 PM PST by Revel
Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar
BY JUSTINA WANG A 12-year-old Aurora boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.
The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.
The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar.
Two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning, the boy's mother said.
He joked that it was cocaine, before telling them, "just kidding," she said.
Aurora police arrested the boy after a custodian at the school reported the boy's comments. The youngster was taken to the police station and detained, before being released to his parents that afternoon.
"This is getting ridiculous," said the boy's mother. "They treated my son like a criminal. .. . This is no way to treat a 12-year-old kid."
East Aurora School District officials declined to comment on the case, citing privacy issues.
The district issued a written statement, which said: "The dangers of illegal drugs and controlled substances are clear.
Could get probation "Look-alike drugs and substances can cause that same level of danger because staff and students are not equipped to differentiate between the two."
The school handbook states that students can be suspended or expelled for carrying a look-alike drug.
Penalties for juveniles are decided on a case-by-case basis, but if convicted, the sixth-grader could likely face up to five years' probation, said Jeffery Jefko, deputy director of Kane County juvenile court services.
Juveniles who have prior criminal records could also be placed in a residential treatment program if convicted, he said.
Aurora Beacon-News
It was all fun and games, until somebody snitched. I had the potheads thinking it was real. But we got hauled into the vice principal's office.
I guess I should be lucky that happened thirty years ago, otherwise my Naval Career and Legal Career might never have happened..
Possibly, the Police might send this to the DA for prosecution of "intent to distribute" type charge regarding a "look alike" drug.
However, DA's worth their salt wouldn't waste their time, and I don't think the Judge would convict.
However, the Public School System is all about ZERO TOLERANCE these days. If you thought Muslim Society is strict, it has nothing on the Education system..
but does the school handbook define "look-alike drug"?
and is the policy enforced uniformly?
i suspect a good lawyer could argue that the policy is unclear, vague, overly general, and enforced in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner.
Nope. Who said it was?
Now, powdered sugar in a baggie looks like a drug, especially after joking that it was cocaine. That is against written school policy.
Maybe the powdered sugar wasn't for a science class but for a home economics class, to bake a cake.
We are truly in trouble if our teachers and school administrators are too stupid to tell the difference between cocaine and sugar.
We are. The "privacy issues" are the dumber-than-rocks administrators (some with PhD's, I'll bet, despite IQ's reaching as high as the low 30's) who desperately DON'T want to be tarred and feathered as they deserve.
Besides, they just got angry that the boy's antics took away from "condom practice"...
No cheers, unfortunately.
So, if it becomes against school policy for people to breathe, you would probably advocate that people stop doing that?
They aren't allowed INTO education majors if they can read and write at more than a 4th grade level (5th grade for education grad school).
Kinda like DU, come to think of it...
Cheers!
The problem most likely is that some of the 60's rejects teaching in this school were mad that it was only sugar to begin with.
If this had happened to my son or daughter I would start a war with these blistering idiots the likes of which they never would have dreamed. I would fight to my last penny and breath to make sure they aree were fired, excluded from teaching and for those absolutly out of their mind police officers and officers of the court I would do the same.
God bless the fact we home school. This is just one more example of why the state has no business having such control over the lives of our children and us as citizens when they lack such basic common sense.
"The school handbook states that students can be suspended or expelled for carrying a look-alike drug."
It doesn't say "look-alike food made to look like a drug." What those idiot sub-humans are doing to that 12-year-old is more harmful than actually using cocain would have been. They are not the least bit interested in the welfare of children, and certainly are not interested in educating them. We're living in a world of control and power freaks who are destroying our children. In this country they are much more dangerous then Islam.
Hank
"Could get probation "Look-alike drugs and substances can cause that same level of danger because staff and students are not equipped to differentiate between the two."
Is it going to jump out of the bag and bite them? What danger? Don't answer that, bureaucrats can make anything dangerous when they want to manipulate behaviour.
...And not good looking enough to be the teachers' boy toy.
"It is unlawful for any person knowingly to manufacture, distribute, advertise, or possess with intent to manufacture or distribute a look‑alike substance. Any person who violates this subsection (b) shall be guilty of a Class 3 felony, the fine for which shall not exceed $150,000."
My guess is that they'll drop this to a 404(c):
"It is unlawful for any person knowingly to possess a look‑alike substance. Any person who violates this subsection (c) is guilty of a petty offense. Any person convicted of a subsequent offense under this subsection (c) shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor."
By their definition, a bag of dark dog crap could be a "look-alike drug" for Black Tar Heroin!
Time for all parents to pull their kids from these schools...withhold their taxes for "education funding", and remove each and every one of these proto-Marxists from ANY semblance of power and authority!
But how is it that possession of sugar, or any of the various other foods that look like dope, becomes a felony?
Geez Louise. The kid's got powdered sugar in a baggie. He says it's coke. How much more look-alike can it be?
"i suspect a good lawyer could argue that the policy is unclear, vague, overly general, and enforced in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner."
I suspect he could try.
"Look-alike drugs and substances can cause that same level of danger because staff and students are not equipped to differentiate between the two."
But abortion and pre-marital sex is just fine to encourage at school.
Our Founding Fathers would be ashamed of what we have become.
I did this with a bag of confectionary sugar when I was 7... I told a neighbor girl that it was cocaine... Her dad came over and started screaming at my dad... My dad told him that it was harmless sugar and that it was only a joke... My dad laughed and told the guy to get a life and move on...
The felony is total bs...
The best time for arguing in favor of breathing is before it becomes school policy, not after you violate it. This way, you see, you have more credibility.
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