Nomination For A Hero Badge
This story seems absurd as it stands. A girl is charged with felonies for using the old forefinger, thumb gun. Male students in the same school district are charged with misdemeanors for bringing real guns to school. Actually, it is worse than it seems.
How can that be? There used to be a legal fiction called the “reasonable man.” He is no longer around, liberals killed him. The idea behind the reasonable man was that a trier of fact (jury) could test the assertion of the accused in light of what society as a whole was prepared to accept.
In this case a threat is only a threat if society says it is. It doesn’t matter what a moonbat feels. The components of a threat to kill or do bodily harm, require immediacy and the ability to carry out the act.
Telling a person that the offender intends to “beat the victim up,” a week from Tuesday, may not meet with Miss Manners approval, but it isn’t a violation.
I once took a sexual assault report. The nineteen year old coed reported that she submitted to the suspect’s sexual advances only after he threatened to strangle her bunny rabbit. According to the District Attorney, the threat didn’t pass the reasonable man test.
Standing on one side of an impassable river, waving a baseball bat and shouting threats to do bodily injury to an opponent on the other side of the river is not a viable threat. The ability to carry out the threat is blocked by the river. The story would be different if the offender was armed with a firearm. In that instance, the river would pose no barrier.
Going back to the story. The girl was asked a specific question. According to the Kansas City Star, the incident unfolded in a classroom at Westridge Middle School.
The person said that during a class discussion, another student asked the girl, if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol — like the ones many children use playing cops and robbers.
Kansas City Star
So, if she merely pointed with her index finger, it would have been Okay? Her offense was raising her thumb, as she pointed? There is no indication that any statement was made to accompany the finger pointing.
What caliber is that finger? Watch where you point that thing!
She was then taken to the school resource officer and principal. It is an unfortunate fact that Deputy Scott Peterson, late of Broward County, Sheriff’s Office, is the ideal that all other school resource officers hope to emulate.
This story goes from bad to worse, according to Star columnist Toriano Porter, who points out the fact that two kids in the same school district who recently brought real guns to school aren’t facing felony charges for their actions.
There are two reasons that this situation was allowed to escalate. One is stupidity within the school system. The second is the inability or unwillingness of elements of the criminal justice system to holler bullshit. Faced with a choice of doing the right thing or telling the school principal he was an idiot, the police and prosecutor tossed a twelve-year-old girl under the bus.
This is for the cops and district attorney. Maybe they will recall when they possessed a pair.
I stated at the outset that this story is even worse than it seems. Consider, I just defended a 12 year-old girl who is charged with threatening a mass murder, suicide in a school setting.
As a retired police officer, I may be armed with firearms. I have heaped abuse on school resource officers and school principals. I have insinuated that police officer and district attorney participants, in this farce, have been gelded castrated. Gelding is probably the wrong term. It produces a useful animal. Castration produces a soprano, only capable of singing show tunes.
By taking this stance I could be opening myself up for a “red flag” designation. Over forty years of responsible gun ownership, thirty as a police officer erased by a single blog. All it takes is a complaint from easily offended shoe scrapping, that feels threatened.
Bring it.