Posted on 09/30/2005 11:03:44 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Boy, 10, held for firing a toy weapon Sep 29 2005
By Stephanie Turner
A YOUNG boy was arrested and put in a police cell for six hours after brandishing a £5 plastic toy gun in the playground of his Smallfield school.
Elaine Hampson, headteacher at Burstow School, in Wheelers Lane, contacted the police after the youngster fired the imitation weapon during a break.
He was later arrested because the pellet had hit another pupil.
Owen Smith has now been temporarily excluded from the school and a letter has been sent to all parents explaining the situation.
The boy's father, Roger Smith, 36, told the Horley Mirror that Mrs Hampson contacted him at work and said his 10-year-old son had brought a firearm into school.
The boy had pestered his dad so much that he eventually gave in and bought the pistol from a Horley toy shop, just three days before the incident.
Owen has suffered with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) since the age of five.
At present he takes no medicine for his condition, and that means his behaviour often can be erratic.
"He sneaked the gun into school like young boys do," said Mr Smith, of Smallfield Road.
"I explained to the head-teacher that it was a toy and that he shouldn't have it in school. I told her to take it off him and I would put it in the bin. She said that Owen had shot it at a child and the police were coming to arrest him."
Owen had fired one of the tiny plastic pellets from inside the gun and it hit a fellow pupil on his arm. A member of staff spotted the incident and the headteacher called for police assistance.
Mr Smith, a self-employed glazier, said: "I know that he shouldn't have done it but it didn't warrant what the school was doing.
"When I got the call I knew straight away what he had done. I thought I will go and tell him off, take the gun off him and get it sorted out."
But it was too late. When Owen's mum Melanie arrived at the school, a police car was already there and officers were set to cart the child off to the station.
Mrs Smith and her son were taken to the police station where Owen had his fingerprints and DNA taken before being put in to a cell.
Although the door remained open, his parents are angry that the youngster was forced to sit in the cell for a total of six hours.
He was eventually released and reprimanded.
Mr Smith said: "Owen couldn't believe what was happening. Everyone we tell is amazed by it.
"He was very upset at the police station. The police were being very serious and telling him to stay in a cell. I had to get a solicitor involved."
Mrs Smith, 32, is a nursery nurse and was called out of work to accompany her son to the police station.
She said: "Owen definitely shouldn't have taken the gun into school but we should have been called in to deal with it.
"I agree with him being excluded.
"He obviously has to learn but we could have taken the gun off him and punished him.
"It's so difficult to explain to someone about ADHD.
"Owen can be so impulsive. He would climb up a tree and not even think of the consequences."
A spokesman for Burstow School said: "There was an incident at the school and our priori-ty was the safety of other pupils and members of staff."
A police spokesman said that the weapon had been discharged numerous times during the morning break.
Superintendent Martin Parker said: "BB guns are not toys and even a low-powered weapon as used in this incident has the potential to seriously injure someone, particularly when there are young children involved.
"Thankfully no-one was badly hurt but we will [not] tolerate this kind of behaviour.
"At 10 years old a child is above the age of criminal responsibility and so a decision was made, with the full support of the school, to arrest the boy.
"ADHD is not an excuse to behave in this way and I would question why a child with these kinds of behavioural difficulties was allowed access to a BB gun in the first place.
"It is important for children to understand at a young age the consequences of their actions and our response should help set him some boundaries about what is acceptable and what isn't.
"When dealing with a 10-year-old child we will of course give them special consideration.
"He was dealt with as swiftly as possible.
"The door of his cell was left open and his mother was with him throughout.
"In total, he spent slightly more than four hours in custody and most of this was spent waiting for legal representation to arrive."
"The boy had pestered his dad so much that he eventually gave in and bought the pistol from a Horley toy shop"
I guess we know who wears the pants in this family...The kid.
"Owen can be so impulsive. He would climb up a tree and not even think of the consequences."
What the hell is this? Is a 10 year old supposed to wear a chute or something when climbibg a tree?
"you will have a generation on your hands that doesn't know which end of the tube the round comes out of and you idiots will all be captives..."
The left lives in an odd little world where they dream that one day there will be no wars. Oddly enough, they embrace muslims too. Does anyone else see the flaw there?
I was watching the history channel the other day, and there was a story of a marine in WWII who was in a foxhole, and held off about 200 Japanese single handed. He had positional advantage, and a superior weapon, (the point of the program). But they also noted that he was a farm boy who had spent many hours on the farm shooting, and that without doubt saved his life.
"Exactly! In a generation, anyone with any gumption will have been medicated or psychoweenied to the point they will just shuffle along with the rest. God help us!"
It's a scary precedent when changeable behaviors suddenly turn into mental disorders that require medication. Some kids just need a little more maturity than others, ADHD diagnosis is a lazy way to fix that. My folks are good parents and mean well, but they were fooled by psychonannies into thinking I have some ficticious mental problem that required medication, and so I've been on 3 different medications for it over the course of my stay in public schools. One of those really did help my concentration because it pumped me so full of stimulants and other crap, then it did something to me to cause nervous tics like I had tourettes syndrome. They mostly went away after I got off that medication, but I still have little remnants of it once in a while when I'm feeling under high stress. It's hardly noticeable now and doesn't interfere with anything thankfully. After I graduated high school and finished my first year of college, I got off the other meds on my own and nothing changed except my attitude and a realization that I'd been duped into expensive treatments for nothing. Afterwards for a couple of years whenever I'd make bad grades my parents would say I need to be back on meds, but they've finally backed off that position and don't even bring it up anymore. It's a tragedy how normal people are being fooled into pumping their children with expensive and harmful medications with the best of intentions, all because some pinhead with five degrees throws psychobabble at them and tells them their kids have a serious problem. I have proven along with many others I'm sure that ADHD is nothing more than an expensive label for laziness and lack of maturity and discipline.
"When the free world is completely taken over by a society who is NOT afraid to raise warriors, nobody complain".
Owen has suffered with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) since the age of five.
OMG!! The lad is a BOY! Throw him in prison now and throw away the key! He won't take his DRUGS to subdue him into being a girlie-boy!
I have a great idea of what to do with psychiatrist/psychologists/and other witch doctors who prescribe drugging MALE human beings!
It begins with a dull rusty knife!
"Was it a toy or was it a pellet gun. "
I'm guessing it's the same thing my son has. An "airsoft" pellet gun. It shoots round plastic pellets, about 4x the size of a bb. The muzzle velocity of a good one is 175 feet per second. Couldn't break a window with one of these. As long as my son wears goggles, he and his friends shoot each other all the time.
Orwell was only 20 years off in his reckoning. Not bad.
"Climb a tree! Oh no!"
Sometimes I change the channel without thinking twice. Maybe I should schedule an appointment with a psychologist.
'you'll shoot your eye out' ping
Dammit this pisses me off....what BOY ever thought of the consequences of climbing trees. ADHD is just some poor, made up excuse to make being a BOY a disease..
Did they put him in a pretend jail cell? Seems like that would be the only just punishment for firing a pretend gun.
:-)
"Above the age of criminal responsibility?Above?? What heck does that mean? That he is too old for criminal responsibility? Or that he is superior to criminal responsibility, i.e. "Cesar's wife must be above suspicion." Either English-English really is different from American-English, or this was written by a lousy journalist and a worse editor."
Think it must be the first option, it makes perfect sense to me!
A child reaches the age of criminal responsibility on his 10th birthday. This child, having reached that point, is above the age of criminal responsibility. As opposed to a child of 9 who would be below the age of criminal responsibility.
The DNA thing is a nice touch, isn't it? SHEESH.
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