Posted on 06/20/2008 8:05:00 PM PDT by Coleus
Brooklyn teen Quashon Burton thought bringing a laxative-laced cake to school would be "funny" - but he's not laughing now. After two teachers were sickened and he was hit with an assault charge, the senior is worried his whole future is collapsing like a half-baked souffle. "I'm pretty scared," Burton told the Daily News Thursday outside his home in Brownsville. "I didn't mean to have this whole thing blow out of proportion. I thought it would be a senior prank that everyone would think is funny."
Burton, 17, and pals Tiara Peoples and Kenny Ramirez got the idea to bake Dulcolax tablets into a cake from a similar gag featured on MTV's "High School Stories." Slices were handed out last Thursday at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies in Cobble Hill, and two teachers wound up in the hospital. The three were suspended, and six days later, prosecutors charged them with felony assault on a teacher, which carries up to seven years in prison. Burton, a self-confessed "class clown" who has done plenty of time in detention, said he realizes his arrest is no joke.
He had planned to enter community college, find a sales job and take a plumbing course. Now he's worried he might end up in jail. "I live with my mom. She's kind of terrified because she doesn't really know what's going to happen," he said. "My mom struggled all her life. Not too many in my family have been to college. I just wanted to create a better life for myself."
“The actual punishment should involve sincere apologies and repayment of hospital bills instead of taxpayers having to support even more prisoners. I don’t mind the pranksters getting a good scare about possible consequences, though. It appears to be making a serious impression on at least one young man.”
Amen to that.
Kid, why would you think that? Deliberately feeding someone something that will make them ill is assault.
A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.-Robert Heinlein
Kid needs to watch TV less and read more.
I would go with probabtion, but I also think we need to start making folks who do things (thru stupidity or otherwise) that potentially harm others to make some sort of restitution. I think it would be fair, and probably a lesson, if the court ordered him to do a couple of days of work around the homes of those who were affected. He could clean out their garage or mow their grass, or whatever the court and the person agreed to.
susie
AFter reading your about page, I have vowed to never taste any of your Tex-Mex recipes!
susie
Liberals with government jobs and bargain medical end up in the hospital for hangnails.
There was a time when adults could handle cases like this without calling the cops.
Arrrrgh... did you have to post that while I was drinking a cup of tea?
Now get on a plane, come over here and help me clean my keyboard and monitor.
Being someone who use to suffer from lower GI troubles, I can see where it would cause serious problems.
That's because most policing was done by parents, at home, and with a "spare the rod & spoil the child" atmosphere.
I promise, I WOULD...but I don’t fly!
susie
Typical government school leaches sniffed a lawsuit and went to laying the groundwork right away, I'd say.
So then why'd they eat it?
Somebody coached this kid to spin it the best way he could. Future plans in jeopardy, mother scared yada, yada.
I'm amazed at some of the responses on this thread that seem to be blaming the teachers when they are victims of a planned conspiracy to make them sick. You may hate teachers for spreading their liberal bigotry to captive audiences, and I don't blame you for that. However, I don't see that as an excuse for deliberately sabotaging food and then offering it to them. These kids are committing a criminal act.
Not all teachers are liberal, either. I am a teacher, am staunchly conservative, and I constantly challenged my kids to examine their closely held beliefs mainly on the environment. And, I never accepted any food anyone offered me. Nor did I leave my water unattended. I liked and trusted most of my kids, but I could never get past thinking what someone would do on a dare, like spit in my water and watch me drink it in front of the class, unsuspecting.
But the larger lesson in this story is the shocking loss of a moral code most of these kids have today. I'm one of the "old school" teachers who school districts have been longing to get rid of for years because we're not with the "new program". Please don't hold me responsible for the general degradation of this generation; I have been trying desperately to prevent a lot of it from occuring to the extent of my control. I hold kids accountable for their actions and take no excuses, usually ending up in many a meeting with a parent and the principal to get their kids back in school after I suspended them. I remember an incident a year or so ago when my principal asked me, "are you sure you want to do this?" "of course," I replied and that's all he needed. The kid was out, expelled--not just suspended. I had many teachers thanking me warmly because most of them didn't have the guts to do it. But that's just a portion of it. I kept as much of the BS out of the classroom that I could, for the kids' own sake!
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