Two Florida boys charged with a felony for violent stick figure drawings

AP ^ | 1/25/5

[Rainmist]

Obviously you are childless.

[jimt]

Certainly these drawings show a problem...

You were obviously never a little boy.

[PilloryHillary]

Would this pic make a kid seem suicidal or homicidal?

[pageonetoo]

Obviously you are childless....

Obviously you are clueless. I have 5! Oldest son is cop, #2 son is band teacher, three and four daughters are "at home" mommy's, and the fifth daughter is 15 and an artist!

[FreedomCalls]

There's a whole genre of computer animated stick fights out there. Entire web sites are devoted to the art. Check it out:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Recreation/Humor/Bizarre/Stick_Figure_Deaths?tc=1/

I'm sure most computer-savvy boys are aware of this. I wonder if the school administrators are?

[freepatriot32]

possible story for your florida ping list

[KC_for_Freedom]

Two boys were arrested for making pencil-and-crayon stick figure drawings depicting a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung

My friend and I did this in an ongoing cartoon (similar to Spy vs Spy in Mad Magazine). I was older then, high school, so I guess they would have given us the chair.

[uglybiker]

Stick figures are a bad influence must be defeated!

[HungarianGypsy]

In high school my husband once wrote a letter to a girl in class stating that read, regarding two teachers they were complaining about, "They aren't even worth two bullets between them." This was in the bottom of the garbage in one of the teacher's classrooms. The teacher dug through her garbage found this statement and said she felt threatened by her student (before this she was already mad that he was able to pass her tests without doing the homework. something she said was impossible) He ended up moved out of her class. If it were now-a-days he would have a felony criminal record.

[OXENinFLA]

WTF!!

[wattsmag2]

Gad, no more playing hangman

[Semper Paratus]

When I was 10 I was drawing nuclear mushroom clouds. What would have that got me today!

[OXENinFLA]

[Eagle9]

It's all a matter of perspective. Stickman Goes To The Beach

[demkicker]

There's something else going on there. My guess is that the boys were "off" and seen by the school as potentially violent. The parents refused offers by social workers or the school shrink. School authorities, fearing for safety of other students, trumped up this charge.

That's fine, but rather than charge the boys with felonies they could have expelled them from school unless they met with the social workers/shrinks, and made it clear that the boys couldn't step foot on school property without getting arrested.

[gimme1ibertee]

Woo-Hoo! Sold American!!!!! :P

[Plutarch]

Playing hangman now a felony.

[cbkaty]

Playing devil's advocate here... the article does say that the figures had names of actual people attached to them. A classmate depicted as being full of knives shouldn't be taken lightly, although definitely not felony-level.

Oh Lord..........Not here...not at FreeRepublic....

How did you get through the door?

[Diva Betsy Ross]

To contrast that with these students, who broke a federal law.. who walk scot free and get to brag about it all over the internet:

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers. Several hundred students walked out of classes at several Seattle colleges and universities to protest the inauguration of President Bush

Does that make you angry? Anyone else see some double standards here? See this post then: HERE

[Nataku X]

Hey, I said I was playing devil's advocate... I did it because no-one picked up on that this wasn't your typical boy's drawing of armies, bad guys being killed etc. I said outright I don't agree with the felony charge (and I don't even support any kind of criminalization for this, period).

But, do you disagree that we should at least look into why this boy was drawing depictions of classmates in violent deaths?