Posted on 09/25/2006 1:15:11 PM PDT by Abathar
Police Say Boy Poked Other Team With Thumbtack
LAYTON, Utah -- A 15-year-old high school football player faces simple assault charges for putting a thumbtack in his glove before shaking hands and high-fiving players from a rival school, authorities said.
The student was kicked off the team following the incident, which happened Thursday after a game against Davis High School. The student's name has not been released.
"This was a young man who made a very immature decision," said Layton High School Assistant Principal Dee Burton.
Several members of the Davis team were jabbed with the tack, said Layton Police Sgt. James Petre. One chose to press charges.
The two schools have a long history of playing pranks on each other, school officials said.
Davis School District spokesman Christopher Williams said he was told salt had been poured on the Layton football field earlier this week, but "that does not justify what the student did."
He said he did not know if the field was damaged.
"There's been a rivalry between the two for years, but it doesn't justify one student to hurt another student," Williams said.
Along with criminal charges, the student could face further sanctions from the school if an administrator decides the tack was a weapon and that the incident wasn't merely a prank, school officials said.
Layton is 20 miles north of Salt Lake City.
Oh good grief, if these people were in charge when I was a kid I STILL wouldn't be eligable for parole yet...
A thumbtack injury isn't a big deal, but's not a prank when you give someone a blood transfusion from a random set of people.
Good point.
Ok, when I was a kid we didn't have to sorry so much about that i guess.
Back a long time ago, I worked in a shop building cabinets and during lunch, a common prank (done on my and by me) was to shoot a 9/16" staple through the 1/2" plywood someone would be sitting on while eating lunch.
Someone would sneak up, stick the stapler under your seat, and punch one through. It never hurt too bad and barely broke the skin, but the combination of sound and pain would usually get someone completely off their feet in the air.
The world is getting pretty thin skinned.
We put a thumbtack in a guy's seat in HS, before class, and all the teacher made us do was stay after class and lecture us on how immature it was........but it was still funny........
I will agree. I'm not too big on the "it was only a tack" defense.
I guess they don't do "Blood Wings" anymore for newly minted paratroopers...
We put them on the teachers seat once and we had to clean the chalkboards during recess for a week. Never had to worry about a lawyer and getting expelled though.
Sounds to me like the student isn't the only one making bad decisions. Where do they get these people that run schools these days?
Get the UN involved.
They still do that, thats one tradition that will not be denied anyone who chooses it. :)
salt had been poured on the Layton football field
Yeah, salt. That's brilliant. Nothing will ever top the time we hit the Churchill High football field with 20-20-20 fertilizer a week before the home opener and spelled out "COOKIE HAS AIDS". That was ribald comedy in it's highest form.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
When he and his family get through paying for all the blood tests, including HIV, they won't be laughing. If anyone had a communicable disease, it will get much worse.
The teacher was sacrosanct in my day............
Not even as far back as high school - but just a few years ago at work, people would pour a little water on your chair so when you sat down you'd get the "cold water on your ass" shock. After everybody started checking their chair before sitting, the culprits started injecting the water with a syringe into the seat cushion so it couldn't be seen when you looked at the fabric.
I'm afraid nowdays we'd have a lawsuit on our hands if we did that sort of stuff.
Our favorite prank was gluing the telephone handset to the phone itself and then go call the person. When they'd try to answer the phone the whole phone set would lift up. For some odd reason, the office manager frowned on that sort of thing.
Thumbtack in chair, water balloons, paperclips and rubberband, spit balls, urinating on the radiator, soap and water on the restroom floors(soap hockey), tripping, thumping ears, stooge eye poking, passing gas in the bus on a cold day, crude noises, wedgies, titty twisters, pitch up and smear, throwing the dodgeball really hard, tossing books out a window, indian burns, wet willies, and flinging peas: Everyone I know would still be in prison.
Substitute teachers, we made one run from the room crying. Caught hell both at school and at home though, so I learned my lesson the hard way. Usually the only way they stick sometimes.
Amazing how the left rushes to convict this kid but is very happy to forgive throat slitters, bus bombers, airplane bombers.
Wow! Sounds like you were just a joy to be around. We had a guy like that at our school. One day, a bunch of other guys decided they'd had enough of his crap. He was out of school for a week.
......and it's STILL funny!.........
That reminds me of the O's fans who burned "Sox Sux" into the outfield grass right behind 2nd base prior to the Red Sox visit. That was pre-Camden Yards (when Baltimore still had actual baseball fans and an actual major league team).
I be lying if I didn't smile when I thought of it... :-)
"A 15-year-old high school football player faces simple assault charges for putting a thumbtack in his glove before shaking hands and high-fiving players from a rival school, authorities said."
I don't know about charges, but he should be suspended if not kicked off the team permanently.
....me, too!............
It's a list of sins my fellow classmates committed. I do plead guilty to soap hocky, spitballs, and making footprints on the bathroom ceiling, although, I do have a pencil lead tattoo courtesy of a fellow classmate.
"I guess they don't do "Blood Wings" anymore for newly minted paratroopers..."
Last I heard that was officially verboten in todays Army. Then again, many things are simply not discussed.
Yup, not very smart. If the first kid had aids and drew blood, then the next 5 he stuck with the same tack drew blood.....not a good idea. I know if my kid was stuck, I would be a little hot to say the least.
Can you just imagine what they would of done for dowsing a jock strap with evergreen?
The thumbtack thing isn't cool, I guess, since it causes pain, but I think that's no big deal for football players...seems more like the high school football version of psyops to me. Chances are that kid would have been repaind in spades on the playing field.
In any case, the severe punishment is in my mind just another example of how the Left, which includes the educational establishment, is remaking the citizenry into a flock of sheep; the better to control them in the future.
I was pretty sedate in HS, only one incident where I blew a hole through the wall of the science classroom.
One thumbtack? Somewhere Mick Foley is laughing.
Seriously however, I do think the possibility of blood-born disease makes this a very unwise practical joke.
Hmmm, don't think I ever did anything more malicious than powder a chair with chalk from the eraser. Guess I wasn't "cool" enough to stab people with tacks and paper clips.
Or some people have bizarre senses of what's funny.
susie
Ah, I see. So you didn't do all that stuff yourself. OK, never mind.
"Hmmm, don't think I ever did anything more malicious than powder a chair with chalk from the eraser. "
Me neither. I was a major prankster in High School, but I never did a single one that could hurt anyone. I did do a number of them that had hundreds of people laughing simultaneously, though.
And NOBODY in my class would have graduated.
Tack tricks.
Spitwads...after all, JF'nKerry seems to think they're a military weapon!
Rubber bands & paper clips in various combinations.
Pushing in line! (Oh, the HORROR!)
Dry cell battery tricks that would shock one & all.
A jack knife in every pocket.
Assorted wedgies, nuggies, Dutch rubs, pony-tail tugs, 'tripsies', etc., etc., etc...and that was just to our friends; never mind what happened to our enemies.
Sweet! I accidentally made a flame thrower with our gas nozzles. Then again, while it was officially a chemistry class, they should have just been honest and called it, "Dangerous but really cool stuff for dummies to play with."
I once loosened all the set screws on the trap set (drums) to the point that they were just barely holding at all. When the drummer sat down and hit the drum once, the whole set collapsed on the floor.
Then, one day, I filled each of the tuning slides on the tuba with water. When the tuba player started, it sounded like he was playing from the bottom of the swimming pool.
My favorite pastime from the trombone section where I played was to pull the slide off my trombone and zing Tart-n-TinysTM at the flute section.
Exactly
My best band joke was crushed jalapenos on everyone's mouthpiece during a football game. I got in trouble for that one.
This is not a trivial prank. At the very least, everyone jabbed by the tack needed a tetanus booster. These types of puncture wounds are very hard to clean out and easily infected. An infected hand could put a player out for a whole season or worse.
NOBODY yet can even come close to the charges brought against myself when I was 16 in Va. Beach, Va. in 1982.
Here goes, "Assaulting a police officer with a deadly windshield wiper sprayer" I KID YOU NOT.
I sure wish I would have held onto that ticket.
My car was surrounded while stopped at a red light on the Va Beach Atlantic Ave. six cops, guns drawn.
Squirt guns were all the rage that year while cruising the strip (which BTW is now ILLEGAL) My cars windshield wiper sprayer was bent sideways and was a very effective squirtgun. At some point I apparently hit an undercover cop.
That cop regretted my day in court. I had the courtroom rolling laughing and the judge bashing him for bringing me into his traffice court on criminal charges.
Yep.
Some people think its funny to see someone jump up in the air spilling a drink all over themself and screaming in surprise.
Only the stupid people.
The rest don't think it's funny, but rather hilarious.
"Guess I wasn't "cool" enough to stab people with tacks and paper clips."
Me either, I guess. I was cool enough, however, to beat the living crap out of anyone who would have done that to me. On a ball field no less. Kid's lucky his head isn't caved in.
It would be far funnier if someone was trying to play a practical joke on someone and instead it backfired on the joker. I might laugh at that. However, I just don't find other people's pain or humiliation, especially at the hands of another, to be very funny. I'm sure this puts me in the minority, however it's a minority I don't mind being a part of.
susie
To anyone who played organized sports this is unforgivable. A prank is something concocted and executed OFF the field. When you are on the field, looking another man in the eye and shaking his hand, you conduct yourself with honor and dignity. Does the term "unsportsmanlike" mean anything to all you jokers?
"When you are on the field, looking another man in the eye and shaking his hand, you conduct yourself with honor and dignity. Does the term "unsportsmanlike" mean anything to all you jokers?
"
Apparently not. Pranks can be funny, but they should never cause injury to another person. The best pranks are subtle ones, that make people laugh, including the victim, if there is one.
Pranks that cause pain aren't funny. And you're right...when two teams meet on the field, it's time for sportsmanlike behavior. Plenty of room to show your superiority on the field.
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