Autistic Boy Faces Felony Rap for Stick-Figure Sketch

AOL News ^ | may 14, 2010 | David Knowles

[DJ MacWoW]

(May 14) -- A 14-year-old autistic boy in Georgia faces felony charges of making terroristic threats after he drew a stick-figure version of himself firing a gun at his teacher.

After discovering the crudely rendered drawing that Shane Finn had made on his classwork, officials at Atlanta's Ridgeview Charter School suspended the eighth-grader and decided to pursue charges against him, Fox News in Atlanta reported.

[DJ MacWoW]

I remember that one too. They would have charged all of us now. People used to have common sense.

[Steely Tom]

When I heard it (in third grade) the last line was “I hid behind the door with a loaded fourty-four and she did not teach any more.”

Of course, I heard it in a Catholic school, so our grammar was a little better, LOL.

[bgill]

We sang all sorts of verses about teachers to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_of_the_School

[Fiji Hill]

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school...

Just about every kid in my grade school knew that song, although in our variant, the last line of the verse went, "With Khrushchev, marching on."

[aruanan]

He wrote “me” over the one with the gun and “Hartman” over the other figure. There’s a pic of it at the link.

Well, at least he's literate and shows an unmistakable desire for clear communication.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

These lyrics would probably get some poor kid life in prison nowadays:

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the burning of the school
We have tortured every teacher
We have broken every rule
We have marched down to the principal
To tell him he’s a fool
The school is burning down.

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
Hid behind the door
With a loaded .44
And I shot her in her bootie.

[DJ MacWoW]

On Top of Old Smokey
All covered with mud
I found my poor teacher
Face down in some blood
An knife in her belly
An axe in her head
I knew in a moment
My poor teacher was dead.

[depressed in 06]

The fact that there is a gun in the picture decries that the kid did it. Besides, the parents must be the felons.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If he were Muslim they wouldn't be doing this.

[Del Rapier]

I am gonna assume the Union people who e-mailed the new Governor of NJ death threats regarding pay cuts are going to get the same?

Oh and charges are so much bs anyway all the school is doing is dragging its rep through the mud.

I kinda doubt it is possible to ruin the life of a 14 year old with that kind of artistic “expression” but hey if he ever does go off the deep end......he will have a perfectly good excuse.

[TheZMan]

Interesting. This was ours.

On top of old smokey
All covered with blood
I shot my poor teacher
with a forty four slug.

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers
I threw a grenade.

[DJ MacWoW]

Autistic kids have a very hard time expressing themselves. Some never speak. This was the way this boy expressed frustration. You’d think a Special Ed teacher would be smarter. Since she’s not, we know why the boy is frustrated.

[DJ MacWoW]

I like that one. LOL

It sounds like they were different in different regions and times. Mine was from Toledo, Ohio in the 50's.

[Del Rapier]

Correct but not every autistic kids expresses his feelings in that sense.

Expecting a teacher to perform their job or act like anything but a spoiled 5 year is a waste of your concern.

Public education has not served the public over the individual anymore then it has helped integrate special need individuals.

As is I understand the boy’s problem but you’re looking at a school system which looks at autistic children as a resource to be either culled or used.

Either way the teacher probably dealt with her frustrations by either wiping feces on her face so she could make nice with the rest of the faculty and by isolating individual children.

The problem with smearing crap mind you is it seems to lead to a lot of butt kissing and very lil in terms of constructive help towards those who need them.

Ultimately it is not the autistic who can’t speak,it is the whole human race who are so frustrated over a world they can’t describe.

[muawiyah]

My 7 year old did a 16 page comic book on the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait then taking place. Lots and lots of action, shooting, violence in it.

We kept it at home and didn't let the school district suspect he was either a budding young artist or politically aware!~

They're one of those "zero tolerance" operations ~ totally ignant!

[wiggen]

Zero tolerance for the kid but no proof (ignoring video evidence of course) that the Black Panthers intimidated voters in Philadelphia. I think i understand whats going on in our country now. Not.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Home School!

[nathanbedford]

I don't care if a kid is a 21-year-old genius in its third year of law school instead of a 14-year-old handicapped kid with a 75 IQ, how can this be a felony?

Can we render criminal something which ought not to be criminal, that is, the drawing of a picture which comes, or should come, under the heading of free speech simply by putting a new label on it? Just call it "terroristic" and it becomes a "felony"?

Where is the real and present danger? Where is the threat? Where is the call to action to actually shoot the teacher or anybody? Why is this not simply a description of what ought to be done in a theoretical sense, a lament about a teacher, an expression of anger? Where is that extra step that renders free speech into something criminal?

If this is a terroristic picture then virtually every Marvel comic book is also a terroristic publication subject to prosecution for felony. What are we doing? Can you imagine the lethal power for oppression of such a law in the hands of a regime like Obama's?

[Del Rapier]

You have trash that calls itself progressive trying to present a front of control by making examples of whoever they don’t like.They can’t control the mob they’ve created and they can’t even really use it to target those they dislike.

It is a lot easier then dealing with “real thugs”(to use that hmm label) and real threats not to mention real problems.

Time has an article about French nobility wiping crap on their faces,I figure the liberals already see themselves as a nobility in of itself and have decided to follow that particular path of idiocy.Almost always leads to idolizing those in control as your parents and having no patience in those under you.

You have a French “artist” whose models wear wearing an entire layer of mud.I am sure you can understand that metaphor now and were those heroes on the left get their ideas.

Basically you’re having a bunch of fools who think they can loot and rob this country by turning it into a socialist hellhole where you will have no rights except the right to be fleeced.

Problem is this place was already at the breaking point before they came up with that stupidity.

[VRWC For Truth]

Just convert the boy to Islam and all will be forgiven.