The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I simply couldn't believe it when I read this story:
When 18-year-old Tyell Morton put a blow-up sex doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school, he didn't expect school officials to call a bomb squad or that he'd be facing up to eight years in prison and a possible felony record.
He is facing eight years in prison for this prank?
"We have reviewed this situation numerous times," Rush County Schools Superintendent John E. Williams told the newspaper last week. "When you have an unknown intruder in the building, delivering an unknown package, we come up with the same conclusion. ... We cannot be too cautious, in this day and age."
Has America simply, absolutely lost its mind?
So, how many years of hard time would you get for doing this these days?
For God's sake, is there anyone among us who hasn't put a blow-up sex doll in a bathroom stall at one point or another? Who among us hasn't dumped a whole truckload of fizzies into the swim meet and delivered the medical-school cadavers to the alumni dinner?
You know what happens if you do that and your country's still sane? The principal calls a special student assembly to relieve himself of a lecture about the very, very disappointing behavior exhibited by a student who has let us all down, and some of you may think this is funny, but I assure you this kind of bad judgment is no laughing matter. He cancels the graduation barbecue and puts the kid on double-secret probation, and the kid goes on to be the president of the United States, or at least, he does not get thrown in the slammer with hardened criminals, facing a ruined life.
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Oct '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
That is scary. Apparently the family involved doesn't think race was involved. . .but I have to admit, the charges are so insane, it's hard to know what to think.
Some older kids I knew once blew up a pumpkin on school grounds (using some kind of pressurized-air bomb, no explosives involved) and almost went to jail, so I guess I can relate. Still, at least they actually blew something up, even if it was just with compressed air.
May '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I was a teacher in a small south Texas town. We found a gun in a truck the parking lot.
We were required, by federal law, to contact the authorities. Of course we didn't.
The gun was plainly visible in a rack in the rear window. The student had forgotten to remove it after trying for a deer before school. He wasn't a great kid, but he was no felon.
We quietly pulled him from class and had him take the rifle home.
We were accessories-after-the-fact.
Oct '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I agree the charges are an overreaction. It seems every year there are more outrageous stories about kids being prosecuted for relatively harmless incidents
I think the world you describe in which high school pranksters are let off with a wink and a noogie still exist, but they're the small towns where everyone knows each other (or, in any sized town or city where the prankster is related to a member of the school board or administration)
Oct '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I wonder if there's a relationship between these types of cases and political party affiliation?
This happened in Indianapolis, in Marion County, where in 2008 Obama beat McCain 63.8% to 35.4%.
Edited on Jul 7, 2011 at 4:18amMar '11
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
"Has America gone mad?" - Evidently!
MIT students are known for high visibility pranks ("hacks"), which are elaborately designed and always carried out so that nobody's safety is in jeopardy. During the 1982 Harvard-Yale football game a weather balloon with the letters "MIT" appeared at the 50 yard line. The balloon was inflated with a remote-controlled mechanism and the entire assembly had been buried at the Harvard stadium sometime the night before without leaving any traces. At that time everyone, including the Harvard players and alumni in attendance, thought it was an amusing episode and the local press treated it as such. I shudder to think of the consequences to the prancksters these days.
Here's a video of the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLg2XpY0L3w
Dec '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
As ridiculous as the charges are, I note that he already had to spend 5 days in jail, while his family scraped together bail. Just wow.
Feb '11
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
This is the result of Modern Liberalism/Progressivism and the fact that they teach us to not judge. More and more of our decisions are pushed to a "higher civil authority" - judges, etc.
We are to tolerate bad behaviors, but when something like this happens, the system comes down hard. And by "this", I mean meaningless issues. This is why Congress, etc. focus on stupid things versus the big problems. Massive deficits are ignored, but warning labels on sippy cups are important.
Everyone should watch and absorb the talk "How Modern Liberals Think" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c. It's by a guy named Evan Sayet, who used to write for Bill Maher. This talk (and his succeeding one) are key to understanding this mindset.
(I've posted this link here before and I can't stress how important it is to understand this mindset.)
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
You can trace this back to two things: The Columbine shooting, when the relationship between police and kids changed, and tort suits against schools for lack of security, when the relationship between kids and the headmaster changed.
Before Columbine, cops would send kids home when they caught them pranking. Now they have to arrest them. Ditto for the headmaster, who has replaced detention with arrest.
Parents beware. Years back if you got a call from a cop who said, "We've got Johnny down here who got into a fight. Come down and lets straighten this out," that meant the cops and parents spend some time scaring Johnny straight with threats of jail before sending him home. Parents and cops were partners.
No more. Cops lull parents into thinking they will help. Today, after talking to Johnny, they use the conversation with him as a basis to press charges.
Cops are afraid if they don't arrest Johnny, they could be letting go the next Dylan Klebold.
Pre-Columbine I would tell parents to let the cops talk to their child if he is picked up. Now I tell them to have the kid remain silent.
Edited on Jul 7, 2011 at 4:33amJun '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
He'd really be in trouble if he'd put the blow up doll in a burqa. Mind you if he did that the doll would have blown herself up.
Edited on Jul 7, 2011 at 5:08amJun '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
Tommy De Seno: Parents and cops were partners.
No more. Cops lull parents into thinking they will help. Today, after talking to Johnny, they use the conversation with him as a basis to press charges.
Cops are afraid if they don't arrest Johnny, they could be letting go the next Dylan Klebold.
Pre-Columbine I would tell parents to let the cops talk to their child if he is picked up. Now I tell them to have the kid remain silent. · Jul 7 at 4:29am
Edited on Jul 07 at 04:33 am
I still see plenty of evidence that cops & parents are partners.
In my town it is still as Jhimmi suggests, where pranksters are brought to the police station & scared to death, but not charged. A couple years ago classmates of my son were creating explosions by mixing toilet bowl cleaner & some other substance in bottles at a schoolyard. I am still amazed that a dollar store clerk would sell a dozen bottles of toilet bowl cleaner to a young boy and not be suspicious of what mischief he had planned.
Mar '11
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
A blow-up doll in the john? We used to flush cherry bombs. By the way, did you know that the effect of an explosion is enhanced by being underwater? A high-pressure shock wave is produced that can travel quite a distance.
Who said that high school isn't educational?
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
Heritage has a great site--overcriminalized.com--focusing on the federal contribution to the problem. The companion book, One Nation Under Arrest, is also worth a read.
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
StickerShock
Tommy De Seno: Parents and cops were partners.
No more. Cops lull parents into thinking they will help. Today, after talking to Johnny, they use the conversation with him as a basis to press charges.
Edited on Jul 07 at 04:33 am
I still see plenty of evidence that cops & parents are partners.
You live in a wonderful place and I don't doubt your experience. Cops still want to act that way.
But mine isn't an isolated observation. I've given speeches to parent groups on the matter, and most police I've talked to agree that post-Columbine, their superiors began tying their hands by taking away discretion to arrest when anything takes place at a school.
No one wants to be the cop who failed to see Dylan Klebold when he had him early.
A few years back, I handled a case where half the boys in an eight grade class were arrested on sexual offenses for perfroming a wrestling move on the playground that involved hitting the other kid in the rear end.
May '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
This is absurd and criminal (the sentence, not the prank). Hopefully, the bad people responsible for this can be punished (instead of the kid).
May '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I think this is a side-effect of the moral vacuity of the left. As Prager says, real virtues, like being a good person have been replaced with pseudo-good, like recycling, and reducing your carbon footprint. In such an morally unmoored world, the stupid, trivial, even funny can rise to the level of criminal.
Aug '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
Lawyers caused this, insurance companies chimed in, and the CYA administrators saw an opportunity to grab some authoritarian power. Zero tolerance has suspended kids for bringing a butter knife to cut a birthday cake . Now the birthday cakes are verboten because all the kids can't bring them. It confiscates asthma inhalers, pointed scissors, and poppy seed muffins. It is insane. The amount of budget in school districts for teachers ( not administrators, counselors, etc.) used to be in the 70% range, it's fallen below 45% with the lion's share going to non teaching positions. Advocacy always means failed lawyers, socialworkers, and teachers doesn't it ?
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
If the standards applied to this kid had been applied to me, I'd still be doing time. I cannot see, in fact, that he did a single thing that should even technically be forbidden, no less illegal. What on earth is the crime here? Running in the vicinity of a school? Wearing a hooded sweatshirt? Why on earth is it his problem if the janitor freaked out?
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
This is infuriating. Not only should the charges be dropped against the boy, people who try to destroy young men's life for perfectly normal and morale-boosting pranking behavior should have charges brought against them.
I'm sick of how bureaucrats and law enforcement get off scot free when they do stuff like this.
Jun '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
I grew up in a very small (400 people) town in rural Utah--went to high school in the sixties. By this time everyone had indoor plumbing but there were still a few old unused outhouses in town. One Halloween, we stole one, put it in a truck, dumped it on the high school lawn, doused it in gas, and burned it, along with a few bales of straw. We even stayed around to watch it burn.
We didn't even get the obligatory citizenship lecture. No parents were mad. We never owned up to it, but I'm sure we were suspected. The high school didn't burn down. Life went on.
People were sane back then.
Edited on Jul 7, 2011 at 6:31amOct '10
Re: The Tyell Morton Case: Has America Gone Mad?
jhimmi: I wonder if there's a relationship between these types of cases and political party affiliation?
This happened in Indianapolis, in Marion County, where in 2008 Obama beat McCain 63.8% to 35.4%. · Jul 7 at 4:07am
Edited on Jul 07 at 04:18 am
This happened in Rushville, Indiana, where in 2008 McCain beat Obama 56% to 42%. Government insanity and prosecutorial zealotry are not limited to Democrat-controlled venues, though that's the way to bet.