Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar

suntimes ^ | February 11, 2006

[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

[robertpaulsen]

"No drugs were found, as usual, but somebody has to pay a price, right!"

Are you willing to go on record to say that drug dealing was NOT going on in the hallways at Stratford High School in Goose Creek?

[Know your rights]

You can't explain it except to say the janitor shouldn't have believed the kid when the kid claimed it was cocaine, but he should have believed him when he said he was kidding.

Red herring. The issue is not what was believed but whether the totality of the kid's statement (as opposed to a tendentiously extracted fragment) amounted to a representation that the sugar was cocaine ... which it did not.

He was charged with possessing a substance that looked like cocaine and was represented as cocaine to his friends.

As the totality of his statement makes clear, he did not so represent.

[Know your rights]

this kid certainly met the standard, wouldn't you agree?

No, since he didn't represent the sugar as being cocaine.

[SUSSA]

pointing at them and saying, "Bang bang, you're dead" is grounds in my book.

Or, three whacks across an open palm with a half-inch diameter 42" wooden pointer by the teacher is also acceptable. (Yes, I went to Catholic grade school taught by nuns.) But, since that is no longer allowed, a three day suspension is what it has to be.

You have to be joking about this. Back in the days when I was in Catholic school, Father Vogel frequently would have a finger gunfight with one of us on the playground. We all wanted to be Tom Mix and would try to out draw him with our finger guns. He always beat us, so three of us ambushed him one day as he came out the door. None of us got hit with a pointer for “shooting” him with finger guns.

Nor did we get charged with terrorists threats for singing to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, “My eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school; We tortured all the teachers and we broke the Golden Rule . . .”

Nor did we get in trouble for drawing pictures of killing Nazis and Japs. Even the kids in socialized schools didn’t get in trouble for those things in those days. The bureaucrats in the classrooms and the administration had more sense than their counterparts today.

Nor did the nuns or Father Vogel have to call the cops for every little thing. Today the bureaucrats call the cops and have kids arrested for little things like fist fights. In 7th grade two alter boys got caught drinking the Communion wine. Sister Mary took them to Father Vogel and he never even called their parents. He sure didn’t call the cops for underage drinking and theft of church property. He just made them hand oil all the pews in the church. It took them a whole week of after school and all day one Saturday.

Later in Lutheran school, things weren’t much different. Pastor Gresser and Mr. Hauptman, the principal, never called the cops. Most of our kids were from the inner city and it was rare for any of us to even get hit. Although I have to admit, I got as many swats on the hand as anyone in my class.

Two of us brought water guns to school one day that looked real if you didn’t get too close. Mrs. Lang sent us to Mr. Hauptman’s office and we had too eat lunch there for the rest of the week, but at the end of the day he gave us our guns back and let us take them home. If things then were like they are now in the socialized government schools, we might still be in jail. At the very least we’d have police records.

Hell, I can’t think of a single boy I was in school with who wouldn’t have a police record if we were in socialized schools today.

Today’s classroom bureaucrats and the administration bureaucrats would have never made it in the schools I went to. I can just imagine how fast Father Vogel or Pastor Gresser would have fired the principal in this story. My guess is Father Vogel would have dragged him out of the school by the scruff of the neck.

[Washi]

I agree that children today have far less respect for adults. I agree that it is primarily because of a lack of discipline. However, this kid was not punished because he displayed a lack of respect, he was punished because of a zero-tolerance guidline and because of a "look-a-like gun." It wasn't a gun (niether was the sugar a drug) but he portrayed it as such (just as the kid did with the sugar.)

So if you support zero-tolerence rules for look-a-like drugs, it would seem to me to be hypocritical not to support zero-tolerence rules for look-a-like guns. Even if the "gun" is a piece of chicken.

[Paul C. Jesup]

For the legalization of medical marijuana, not recreational marijuana, yes.

Loosing of legal restriction is legalization at a limited level. You're parsing words here and by your standards smoking and drinking beer are not legal because there are restrictions on them like for example children cannot use them.

You've got Soros and NORML and the MPP and the DPA and all these outside pro-marijuana organizations funding and organizing these state measures

If Soros was just funding this one issue and not trying to wreck the U.S. economy (which he is by among other things shorting oil futures and driving up the price of gas), I would not much problems with him.

[Old Student]

"I bet your students parents would LOVE to hear that comment. If teaching 7th graders is so horrible, why do you do it? Not that your attitude is any different than what I experienced when mine were in middle school. You see, kids at that age ARE NOT ADULTS. It's a brain chemistry/function thing."

I intended to teach high school, not middle school. Also, this particular 7th grade class (at the school, not just in my room) is widely known as a bunch of little kids, who happen to be older than they ought to be for the way they act. I don't expect them to be adults, as I still (vaguely) remember being that age myself. I do expect them to exhibit brain function now and then, at least in my class. I'm seeing precious little of that, however. I replaced a teacher who left early in the fall, and my kids had to deal with subs and TAs for the rest of last year. They are supposed to already know something about our subject, but their test scores indicate that they spent all last fall somewhere else than in class. The good news is that after a month and a half as their teacher, I now have four students passing the class, instead of only one. 19 to go.

I also have four classes of 9th graders. They are much better behaved than the one class of 7th graders. I've spoken to the parents of several of my worst offenders, btw, and the parents tend to characterize them as "brain-dead."

[Mojave]

For the record, I check my statements before hand.

I hope you washed your hand afterwards.

Name one state here pot is legal.

[Mojave]

Show us the post where mysterio "supports drug dealers being able to legally sell young children crack."

It's in the same post where Mojave "supports a child being thrown in jail for carrying a bag of sugar."

Perhaps you couldn't see it through your cloud of selective indignation.

[pageonetoo]

Are you willing to go on record to say that drug dealing was NOT going on in the hallways at Stratford High School in Goose Creek?

Are you saying that they did find drugs?

Why don't you get a real life...

[takenoprisoner]

"Perhaps you couldn't see it through your cloud of selective indignation."

The only cloud I saw was the smokescreen you left while
refusing to answer the question asked by Mysterio so I shall ask again. Do you support throwing a child in jail for possessing sugar? Do you believe this is a good, reasonable, and constitutional law?

[Mojave]

Find the quote.

[takenoprisoner]

Do you support jailing elementary aged children for possessing sugar?

[mysterio]

Clarify your position.

[Mojave]

Clarify your position.

Again?

Mojave supports a child being thrown in jail for carrying a bag of sugar.

Mysterio supports drug dealers being able to legally sell young children crack.

[mysterio]

Do you or do you not support the child being charged with a felony for having a bag of sugar?

[takenoprisoner]

Do you support removing a child from school and taking him to jail for possessing sugar?

[Mojave]

1. Mojave supports a child being thrown in jail for carrying a bag of sugar.

2. Do you or do you not support the child being charged with a felony for having a bag of sugar?

Careful. You'll overstimulate takenoprisoner's selective indignation gland.

[mysterio]

Answer the question.

[Mojave]

I'd rather expose your hypocrisy. :)