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Preemptive Strike
A North Kitsap High School sophomore is awaiting a juvenile court hearing, accused of creating a hit list and threatening to shoot fellow students.
So begins the story of a 16-year-old in my local community who was arrested last night. Given that there was a school shooting elsewhere in Washington State in the last week, people here are a little on edge concerning violence in schools. In many minds, the response to students saying someone was planning to kill other students was entirely reasonable. I don’t see it that way.
The basic rundown of what happened is this: two kids tell a parent they overheard another student threaten to shoot-up the school and that he supposedly had a hit list. The parent called the school district, received no response, and then called police:
A fast-moving police investigation led to a search warrant executed on the teen’s home and a trip to the juvenile detention center shortly before midnight… Police found guns belonging to the boy’s parents at the home, but it was unclear if the boy had access to the weapons. Investigators say they are trying to determine if this was a legitimate threat or a really bad attempt at a joke… Police say they have yet to find the alleged hit list. The teen is being held on a felony harassment complaint. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.
I concur with responding to credible threats but — when the threat can’t be substantiated — the state should stand down. Of course, it did not: the boy has been arrested and will be arraigned on felony charges of harassment.
Thinking there is no way a comment made to a third party can be construed as harrasment I looked up the law. According to RCW 9A.46.020:
(1) A person is guilty of harassment if:
(a) Without lawful authority, the person knowingly threatens:
(i) To cause bodily injury immediately or in the future to the person threatened or to any other person
Here’s what bothers me about this: the child did nothing. He spoke words. If there is evil intent in his heart — or if there were demonstrable actions behind his words — then by all means do something , but we don’t criminalize thoughts and feelings in this nation.
Image credit: Shutterstock user racorn.
Published in General
We’ve gone nuts, and we’re derailing people’s lives.
That’s it… Teach all the other little psychopaths to keep their mouths shut.
That’s exactly the lesson I would have taken from it as a beat down, disgruntled, angsty teenager, EJ.
Can’t connect the dots if you don’t know the dots exist.
One of my kids points out that many kids in his school routinely threaten to shoot the place down or blow it up. Everyone ignores them, since they have the credibility of a politician.
One of my kids once mentioned in class that he believed in open carry, and they almost suspended him. If they had known about his collection, he would have never seen the inside of another classroom.
I had to explain to him that most people think most other people are just big talkers. But when someone like my son (or myself) open our mouths, people listen and believe us. That is, of course, a very powerful thing for good or ill.
I await Jack and Jay to come tell us all how the Police have a hard job, and searching a home and locking up a 16 year old based on hearsay is really just one of those difficult calls the police have to make.
Thank God they did not execute the search warrant with a no-knock SWAT home invasion.
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Eh, it might also teach some of the other kids to keep their mouths shut.
For a while, I was Facebook friends with one of the little girls I used to babysit. Being a not-so-little girl anymore, she was bragging about her physical relationships. I screenshot the exchange and sent it to her father. Now, maybe all I did was teach her not to share that stuff on Facebook and had no effect on her relationship with her boyfriend. But teaching her that there are some things you don’t share in public was still an important lesson.
My contention is that if kids are feeling these feelings and thinking these thoughts then the root of those problems must be addressed.
Edit: Let me add that prosecution should not be the first response to address the problem.
My experience in school led me to believe there are only three groups: those emotionally destroyed by others, the destroyers, and those too self absorbed to realize what is happening to their classmates. When the destroyed strike back we lament it as tragedy, but we never address the hell they go through every second of the day that leads up to the moment of chaos.
Yes and no … there are some of those who are thinking these thoughts seriously, and there will be others who are just mouthing off to look cool or edgy. (I have a third-grade teacher friend whose students think that “rape” is the new indispensable verb. “I raped you so bad in that game,” “I’m going to rape your mom,” etc.) Silencing the latter group seems all to the good, and the latter group is much bigger than the former.
As for the former, well, they need help, but they should definitely be getting that help before they get to the point of drafting a hit list. Don’t ask me how — my recurring fantasy in high school was hiding a gun in the library so I could kill any school shooters that tried.
Post Columbine high school experience?
1997-2001. Yes, right at the height of the school shootings. It would have been rather easy too; no metal detectors and a library so underused that so long as I had it in a hollow book with the library bar code on the binding, the gun would never have been discovered.
That’s the thing, Amy, in earlier times plenty of the tormented thought about taking out our tormentors, but were restrained (generally) by a shared morality. Once the morality broke down, which was expressed first by increased/tolerated torment, the dam broke and Columbine happened.
I can predict going forward that we’ll learn plenty about how broken this child is. The question that will never be asked is what damaged him badly enough that he would not only consider violence but speak those thoughts out loud.
I’m rather amazed that we put uncivilized barbarians (read that as emotionally/mentally unmatured humans) together in groups with little supervision and expect something else to happen. Every school is Lord of the Flies…it’s a miracle any of us survived it.
Apparently the immaturity is not just a kid thing.
I believe that every day when I stand in lunch duty supervising 600 kids with about 6-7 other teachers. And when fewer than 200 adults supervise a building with 1800 13-18 year old students.
The only reason SOME schools are remotely “safe”and functional is the fairly willing compliance of so many students to a modicum of morality. I guess we should be thankful?
I think the search warrant was justified based on the verbal threat, but hopefully, with no actual evidence of a hit list, a sane judge will do the right thing, and work to discover the root of the foolish words, and unhappiness.
I also wonder about the credibility of the third party…a reliable witness? or a witness with an axe to grind?
Unfortunately, too many times it only takes one disgruntled kid to bring mayhem to a school.
Out here in the everyday workplace, “third-party harassment” is a real situation-always on the agenda in “respectful workplace” training. If someone happens by your desk when you are talking to someone else, and the passer-by is upset by something you are saying to the other person, YOU can be accused of harassing the passer-by. It is your job never to say anything that might possibly upset another worker (I always wondered how you are expected to know everything that might upset every other worker who might happen to pass your desk). The practical effect, if people really did this, would be for no one to say anything not directly work-related to any other person in the factory or office.
I’m convinced teachers just don’t see what’s going on, and kids don’t report it because of shame or fear that it will become worse. If you could be a fly on the wall in many of the private exchanges between students you’d probably bring back corporal punishment whether it was policy or not.
It’s likely that the threat was taken so seriously because the report was backed up by another student and also because of the actual shooting last week. I fear this is a new type of “swatting.”
I don’t, at least not without more detail. Also, how do you search for evidence when the alleged crime was speaking words? How is speaking words a crime anyway?
I get that we should do what is possible to prevent school shootings, but I fail to see how this is it.
Improved efficiency…morale in the toilet. Good luck with that model.
Actually, in this state the words are a crime, hence some of the major concern.
As far as the bullying goes, I think the word is overused. What kids put up with in the form of emotional, psychological, and even sometimes physical abuse goes way beyond bullying. When one goes suicidal or homicidal it is no surprise to those of us who somehow managed to survive. Of course, I wasn’t suspended when I fought back. I few black eyes (I gave and received) were needed to straighten out the mess. If I had been rendered powerless like today’s kids are who knows what would have happened. Back then teachers and principles had some prosecutorial discretion on fisticuffs. I was never punished for punching some [expletive] in the mouth for deserving it. Sure, kids in my shoes don’t hit back anymore and the problem looks resolved…until it doesn’t.
@rushbabe49 #15: I have already been down this road. My response, I almost exclusively talk work at work, I seldom socialize with coworkers, especially womyn. Anybody that does differently is putting their job/career at risk, especially if they are a white hetro male.
Making harassment (threatening speech) illegal is going too far, I agree. Under that doctrine, this famous saying would be harassment:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” — Thomas Jefferson
So yeah, the felony charge is ridiculous, and a sign of the disproportionate and unreasonable legal response that’s become all-too-common.
On the other hand, schools aren’t, and shouldn’t be, limited to strictly what the Constitution allows. They do need to maintain order. And having kids harass other kids is not behavior that anyone really wants in a school.
Amusingly enough, I recently got a phone call from the school: “Your daughter threatened to kill another kid…”
After an initial response from me that you can imagine, they quickly made clear that they recognized that it was a joke, and not a real threat to anyone. Since the kid who was the target (and who had been pushing my daughter around at the lockers—typical kid stuff) had gone and complained to a teacher asking for it to stop, they felt they had to do something. They do explicitly say in the school disciplinary guidelines that threatening anyone is not acceptable, even if it’s a joke.
Given that this daughter’s been a bit fresh-mouthed of late, and has gotten some discipline from us as a result, I thought their proposal of an after-school detention where she’d do her homework outside the vice-principal’s office would be a pretty salutary reminder that she needs to be mindful of what she says to people.
I thought the school handled the whole thing reasonably well.
(We also met with the other family, and the kids talked it out, and we all agreed to put it behind us. Happily the other family was perfectly reasonable, the kids have known each other since they were little, and we all recognized that both kids shared blame, but that their kid started it.)
Social Justice is here, criminals have rights and police protection , you are just in the way. The ebola infection of PC lunacy is going viral. The law is the perfect forum for progressive social activists, they come from the elite schools and they have an army of armed pigs to do the work. The oath of a peace officer is a quaint symbolic ritual which gives them the authority.
The most local source (which is normally a leftist rag) tells an entirely different story than the Seattle media on how this went down. I don’t know what to believe in this particular situation anymore. The news is of no use is gathering factual data on an incident.
Then one reads about stuff like this. I’d say that evil intent—on the part of the school administration!
“Posting photo of your young daughter wearing Game of Thrones T-shirt — not a threat of violence”
“This letter acknowledges that Bergen Community College (“BCC”) may have lacked basis to sanction you for your January 12, 2014 Google+ post of your daughter wearing a Game of Thrones t-shirt (the “Incident”). By sanctioning you as it did, BCC may have unintentionally erred and potentially violated your constitutional rights, including under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
I’m sure that was the intent.
I can’t disagree with you on any of those points.
I can predict going forward that we’ll learn plenty about how broken this child is. The question that will never be asked is what damaged him badly enough that he would not only consider violence but speak those thoughts out loud.
Asking such a question would be a distraction from blaming his parents for owning guns.
I cringe when I hear stories like this one, because around 1988, when I was in high school, I had written up a “hit list,” myself. I was asking friends who they wanted me to off, and I put down the method (like, “make it look like an accident”) and the price I was asking for each.
This was obviously a joke. Nobody reported it to the school or the police. Even I had almost forgotten about it, until recent years, when after the last two decades’ infamous school shootings, I’d seen more than one story of a kid being questioned or arrested for making the same-seeming kind of hit list.
I tend to give the benefit of the doubt for even unlikely claims of innocence, when I’ve been in the same situation, and that’s my instinct here, too. Still, a lot depends on what kind of kid it is.
OK, everyone back away from Tim H… ;)
Kids do lots of things for fun that would be alarming if an adult did the same thing. It’s called “play”. Unfortunately perspective appears to be a trait we’re losing… At least in bureaucrats.
Tuck—Hey, look at Fake John Galt’s avatar…I’m not turning my back on him! ;)
Now, to follow up on your distinction between actions by kids and grown-ups: if I were to do the same “hit list” joke today, as an adult, people would really wonder about me, even if we didn’t live in an era of oversensitivity to the concept of school shootings. At the least, it would reflect badly on my maturity, even if people took it in the spirit it was meant.
But to go back to kids doing this kind of thing, I do hold to treating behavior in the light of how it’s intended, rather than making a witness’ subjective impressions be the standard of judgement (this is a good rule in any claims of “taking offense” at something). Of course, that often requires knowing what kind of person this is who’s doing it: happy, well-adjusted high-school *me*, vs. the creepy, chip-on-his-shoulder goth kid. You’d have context to judge the intent by.
…and then we hear these stories about how nobody could have seen this coming, and the Seattle shooter was popular and well-liked…so, I don’t really know, any more.
Agree exactly, K.P., about State standing down without credible threat, and about not criminalizing thoughts.