Posted on 02/23/2011 7:14:14 AM PST by beaversmom
ARVADA, Colo. -- Arvada Police are defending the way they handled the arrest of an 11-year-old boy. The Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs from his home for drawing stick figures in school - something his therapist told him to do.
His parents say they understand what he did was inappropriate, but are outraged by the way Arvada Police handled the case. The parents did not want their real names used.
They say "Tim" is being treated for Attention Deficit Disorder and his therapist told him to draw pictures when he got upset, rather than disrupt the class. So that’s what he did.
Last October, he drew stick figures of himself with a gun, pointed at four other stick figures with the words "teachers must die."
The boy drew the pictures to let out angry emotions. "Tim," his parents, and his therapist say it was not a threat and that Tim would never hurt anyone.
He felt calmer and was throwing the picture away when the teacher saw it and sent him to the principal's office.
The school was aware that the boy was in treatment, determined he was not a threat, notified his parents and sent him back to class. His mother, "Jane" was shocked when Arvada Police showed up at their home later that night.
She says she told her son to cooperate and tell the truth, but was horrified when they told her they were arresting him and then handcuffed him and hauled him away in a patrol car. His mother says she begged police to let her drive her son to the police department and to let her stay with him through the booking process but they refused.
They put him in a cell, took his mug shot and fingerprinted him. He says he thought he was going to jail and would never be able to go home again.
According to the police report, "Tim" explained he made the drawing to release anger and would never hurt teachers or anyone. At first school officials did not want to press charges, but changed their mind when police called them later that night. A juvenile assessment report shows he's never been in legal trouble before and is at low risk to reoffend.
He's charged with a third degree misdemeanor, interfering with staff and students at an educational facility. The system says it's doing what's in the best interest of the child. But Tim's therapist says handcuffing an 11-year-old and putting him in a cell over something like this is "quite an overreaction" and does much more harm than good.
"Tim" is on probation and if he completes that successfully, the criminal charges will be dropped. But his parents say it has cost them thousands of dollars so far.
And if they had known that their son’s cooperation would be used as evidence against him, they would have hired a lawyer at the beginning and exercised his right to remain silent.
“In the 50s (in 5th grade)”
In the 60s, in fourth grade (during the wonderful Vietnam protest era) I wrote a not very good story about burning down the school. I was sent to the principal’s office. He pointed to the painted cinder block wall of his office and said “This school is made from brick and cement. How well do you suppose it would burn?”
I used to do the same thing, scribbling warrior drawings even on my spelling test papers when I was in grade school, and I didn't do it upon a therapist's recommendation. Fortunately for me there were no clowns to frog march me for a booking at the city jail.
Guess what? I haven't killed anyone yet and am not likely to.
In grade school we used to draw WWII battle scenes on our grocery bag book covers. If teachers ever made it into our drawings they were always the Nazis.
LOL! I’m sure both of you would understand my incredibly detailed WW1 dogfight scenes, I must’ve drawn hundreds of them. Something about biplanes. And they were also accompanied by sound effects too (ATTN Flash). I guess our generations are the wandering unprosecuted criminal class with pencils in hand (#2 pencils of course).
And...a favorite on the bus ride group song list 40 years ago was “Glory, glory hallelujah, teacher hit me with a ruler; I blew her through the door with a loaded .44 and she won’t be there no more”
An 11 year old needs to know that ideas such he expressed is not acceptable. He needs someone to point that out. Maybe they could have done a better job of it by sending him to a therapist that "does not accept his behavior as appropriate" instead of just saying that he did what he was told to do.
What he did was inappropriate and he needs to know that fact. He should not be shot, put in prison but rather dealt with so that he knows that what he suggested by his drawing is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Are you serious? Thought control? I don't give a damn what he drew. How is suppressing expression going to suppress violence?
Before there was political correctness, before there were thousands of anti-gun laws, before there were hand-wringing busy-bodies everywhere, there were NO school shootings. But now we arrest kids for water pistols, scout knives and stick figures. This is not a free country.
And, to answer your question, if a kid walks into class with a gun or a knife I'm NOT going to ask "why didn't someone see this coming?" What I WILL ask is "Why are no teachers armed?"
So who then sicced the fuzz on the boy? And didn't the fuzz have more serious law enforcement duties to preform, such as manning the local speed trap?
Oh, man! I FORGOT that catchy little ditty! Our version was a little gentler, but I like yours better. In ours, the second line was: "Hit her in the bean with a rotten tangerine ... His truth is marching on."
Looks like I'm not alone in escaping justice and avoiding a juvenile criminal rap sheet for my militaristic doodlings in the classroom.
Managed to avoid John Q Law until a couple years ago when I got my only speeding ticket after 45 years of driving, on an empty 4 lane highway at 10:00 AM literally two minutes from my office. Haven't found it in me to donate to the Florida Sheriff's fund since. Maybe next year, maybe not.
Our song on the last day of school for the summer vacation was
No more schoolwork no more books
no more teachers’ dirty looks
We would walk around the school building singing it at the top of our voices
We also drew unflatering pics of the teacher or principal on the black boards
The teachers just ignored us
Today we would be in jail for threateniong a teacher...
We also haD A GREAT VERSION OF mARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB...
Mary had a little lamb
It followed her to school
It made the children laugh and play
to see a lamb at school
the bigger kids added this
Mary had a little lamb
It ... upon the floor
the teacher had to lick it up
and spit it out the door
I dont remember that one sung as loudly but it was sung...
and the teachers heard it...
and not teacher ever complained of being insulted or threatened or scared of our potential to do mayhem...
Unless it was the principal, after hours, which would
still be inexcusable the person responsible disregarded
the principal and went over his or her head.
I wish I didn’t find your account hard to believe. I don’t
disbelieve you, it’s just that yours is no longer typical.
He’d been told by his therapist to make drawings about
“unacceptable” thoughts. Kind of like the Navy vet
who was expelled from the University of Virginia IIRC,
bc of a “disturbing” writing assignment. One that, my
surmise is, paralleled the creative writing he was assigned
to read. I won’t name the more notorious examples of that.
re: “I don’t give a damn what he drew. How is suppressing expression going to suppress violence?”
So, if you found your kid drawing a picture of himself shooting you and your spouse with a gun, with the words, “My parents must die!”, you wouldn’t ask your kid about it?? That would be Ok with you?
No one is advocating “thought control”. No one on FR is adovcating the police arrest this kid. But, what some FR’s are saying is that Ok, the cops shouldn’t have been involved, but the drawing could mean this kid needs to talk to some one - at least find out if there is some issue going on. If it’s just playing around, fine, but, if not - why not at least discuss it with the kiddo.
I dimly recall some ditty along those lines, with actual
names inserted.
I would ask him about it. I would not call the police and give him a criminal record or simply teach him he would get punished for drawing what I didn't like.
If you read what I was responding to, I think thought control was exactly what was being advocated. Or maybe you have a better term. What would you call it when someone is forbidden from drawing or saying certain things?
Look over all the examples posters have given of the songs and drawings they did when kids. I used to draw guns and bombs and planes and even swastikas all over the margins of my notes. That was not considered clinical behavior.
So let's say you ask the kid about his drawing about killing parents or teachers or the class bully. Then what? What if he doesn't give an acceptable pop-psychology answer? What if he says he hates the bully and wishes the bully would die? Or what if he gives you a politically correct answer? Maybe he's lying and telling you what you want to hear.
You could send him for therapy. But maybe hell crack and kill before the therapy cures him. So, logically, if you are as worried about drawings as you say your only recourse is to immediately institutionalize anyone who draws what you disapprove of.
And what do you suggest I do with those friends and acquaintances who use politician photos for target practice?
Back in the early '70s, our sophomore class had an idealistic, fresh-out-of-college Social Studies (never did figure out what, exactly, "social studies" was) teacher. One of the kids in our class was an American-Japanese gal with a great sense of humor, and came from a long-time local Japanese farming family of several generations. This girl was a fun person, always joking; for example, when our social studies teacher had every member of the class share their ethnic background from their parents (Italian - German, Polish - French, etc.) and he came to this girl, who was clearly of Japanese heritage, she piped up: "I'm a Lebanese negro." The whole class busted up. He was a good enough sport to smile, but you could tell he was not amused.
Anyway, it was during the craze of the little "happy face" logo with the words, "Have a Happy Day!" My friend had drawn one on her bookcover (remember the bookcovers we all made out of paper grocery bags?) only it had slits for eyes and the words, "Have a Jappy Day!" When he noticed it, he kept her after class to "talk" to her about it. He made her feel so terrible about it that she was near to tears. I could have slugged him. I never did like him after that. What a liberal wanker. But that's redundant.
As it happened, one of the funniest, neatest guys in my class was named Mike Baty. For months, every time the teacher would call on "Master Baty," the whole class would sit quietly repressing sniggers and snickers, and the teacher would look perplexed. I remember the look on his face when he finally figured it out. He called on Master Baty, the sniggering began, and his eyes suddenly got this "lightbulb just went on!" look.
ANYWAY, this teacher had us memorize the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Perhaps you remember it -- "Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow," etc. It's a nice poem.
Well, one of its lines is: "My little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near." Mike -- when the teacher was out of earshot -- often shared with the rest of the class his own version of the line:
"My little horse must think it queer when I stick my finger up his rear ..." ... and of course, the whole class would simply melt into giggling convulsions.
I felt a lot sorrier for the teacher than I did for us!
I often think of Mike and hope he's doing well.
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