Oh really! A mighty sensitive bunch up at Miscoe, don't you think? It adds new meaning to the rhyme, “no more teachers, dirty looks”
If in fact the details of this story are correct as told by Cheryl Powers to the MDN, we all have a lot to worry about. Change the time and place and this story could have come out of the Stalinist era in the old USSR. This is just another reason why government schools are a problem.
A gun? What gun? A middle school student says someone has a gun and a full-scale invasion of privacy is unleashed! Certainly an investigation was warranted but unless there is far more to this story the reader is forced to the conclusion that a paranoid school administration backed by an overzealous police department trampled on the civil rights of citizens. This is particularly egregious given the age of the child.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
28 comments:
Overzelous?!? Are you even kidding? How can you not take this all serious? Do you watch the news or just stay in your cave? My kids deserve to go to school in safety. If that is ok with you. Maybe it is a grave sign of the times, but it is what it is. Accept it. I sure have. Safety at all cost. I do hope you feel the same way.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT
An investigation was obviously warranted. If the alleged complaints are true I am very concerned.We are all an accusation away from being next.
Sensitive? I hope so.
HG, you and Riff Raff are way off base here. Those of us that know and have been victims of Mr. Powers know better. I am only surprised this hasn't happened sooner. My highest praise to the teacher,principle and particularly the students for bringing this to the publics attention.
Make no mistake about the position of this blog with regard to this matter. If there is more to this story we want to hear it. Our aim is not to protect Powers or slam the school and the cops. They have taken a stand here and they don't do that for no good reason. We want to know why.
That said, what we see here is wholesale character assassination by snipes in the dark. If you have a "DOCUMENTED HISTORY" then produce it or be quiet.
If one of you doesn’t produce some tangible evidence other than your "anonymous word" we will shut this thread down or prohibit comments. You are over the top and risk being the subject of a lawsuit yourself. The Powers are private citizens, not public officials and that makes your public statements about them subject to the laws of libel and slander. We cannot be a part of that.
HG
If you can't produce evidence you leave us no choice other than to remove your posts. We will not have the feds kicking down our cyber door to get to you. Smarten up!
HG
Check out the Daisy web site to see exactly "what gun", a powerline, was found in this kids bedroom. What is egregious given the age of this child is that he even had one of these things in his room. And the gun is documented. This has nothing to do with the rights of private citizens. The fact that a kid this age even had a powerline gun represents a danger to the public.
The deleted posts are evidence enough that there have been many aggreived parties. you will not get anyone to state their names and in this case it is justified for fear of retribution.
I did not see the second deleted post but the first one contained nothing even close to libel. It simply pointed out that the subjects of this story have had incidents in the past that the police were involved in. It did not mention the incidents but some are well known and are on posts on the Riff Raff blog if you are that interested. The point of that post was that the blogs were using this incident to take shots at the police and school officials the dislike of which this blog has demonstrated by its own posts in the past. The complaint made by HG about anonymous posters making unsubstantiated accusations is laughable considering that is exactly this blogs stock and trade. HG has stated in the past that they need to be anonymous due to fear of reprisals. I guess that fear only counts when HG needs an excuse.
Riff Raff is responsible for the content of her blog. Hanging Gardens makes the call for this blog.
Go back in our archives and point out a post where Hanging Gardens trashed the Police Department. Never happened. Our opinion is that during the existence of this blog (14 months) the PD has been one of the few town departments that have acted professionally. Like them or not, they rarely get out of line.
We never asked anyone to identify him or herself, we just asked for some kind of proof other than the word of an anonymous poster.
HG
You said in this story "an overzealous police department trampled on the civil rights of citizens". Now you say they are one of the few town departments that acts professionally. Those two statements do not jive. Which is it, did they trample or are they professional? You can not have it both ways. We may have had an officer in the past that did do some trampleing but he is long gone and it was his boss that got rid of him. Remember this comment you made about the police chief? "the man has an ego the size of Lake Superior and if he falters it will be as a result of hubris." A clever turn of a phrase but hardly a statement of support. I happen to agree that most of our force is very professional but unlike you I see no deviation from that professionalism in their actions in this case. They recieved permission to search the boys bedroom and in the process they found a gun that was clearly not appropriate for a boy that age. We should all be thankfull they took the actions that they did.
Am I missing something here? Are we talking about a twelve-year-old with a paint ball gun at home or a loose cannon with an M-16? Now who is being over zealous?
I am not familar with the family or the incident because I don't see many details discussed, but there are procedures and rights involved. As long as they are followed there should be no problem. But when the "NEW MENDON" police department and new school department administrators violate those rules/procedures and begins to threaten actions to intimidate young students or his/her parents then we should all worry.
There are ways of going about this other than this invasion. Under no circumstances do you hand over all your rights and let these officials have all the powers.
Signed Anonymous because I too fear the NEW MENDON police department.
Whats the "NEW MENDON" police department stuff about? And what is there to fear?
Police don't go looking for shades of 'appropriate'. They enforce existing laws. Similarly, the degree of zeal is merely dictated by law. Was the law followed in obtaining a search warrant, etc?
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the police dept. and the school administration for not brushing this aside.
I agree with anon Dec. 16 10:13
and 3:31. There is a history here and a number of people could cite stories and incidents, including myself.
As a parent with children in the school system, I applaud the actions taken by the school. They are OBLIGATED to follow certain procedures under these circumstances. They contacted the Police - if they didn't, I would be quite disappointed.
They police responded in kind - not knowing anything except for what was reported, they too, must follow very specific procedures.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the parents of this child seem to blame everyone...so, it appears that there is a conspiracy against them. Sometimes, we have to look in the mirror.
I have young children and we openly discuss what you can and cannot say in or around school, it takes time and energy to educate our children about what society expects of us.
I applaud our school officials and our police dept. - what else do you expect them to do?
I think it is important to note that the Parents of this child chose to make this an issue in the press and thus expose thier child to scrutiny and uneccesary attention. I wonder if other parents will now be tempted to keep their children away from him. I think it is sad for the child. If the parents feel they have a case they could have persued it maintining the anonimity of the minor.
you know, that's a really good point - we tend to get caught up in the story and overlook the more important issue.
I guess, you really can't blame the child as much as we have to focus on the parents. To use your child as a pon in a game that could adversely affect your child's social, academic life is disturbing.
I would like to think that most parents would want to fix the problem by working with the authorities to better understand what's expected of them and their child within the parameters of this environment.
Anyone think the school overreacted after what happened at Lincoln Sudbury?
Yes, I do.
HG where are you?
RIP VA Tech Students. We are so thankful that our schools take the extra steps to protect our children.
HG The sky is falling in Mendon, whats your take?
I believe she passed away a month ago.
Post a Comment