"It’s not acceptable to allow incidents such as this to occur. It’s very important to firmly respond."
Boys’ arrest over drawings debated
Is there anything I really need to say here?As the arrest of two elementary school students drew a national spotlight to Ocala, questions persisted Thursday as to whether they should have been taken from Wyomina Park Elementary School in handcuffs.
Ocala Police arrested the two boys, one age 9 and the other 10, this week after they reportedly drew stick figures in pencil and crayon representing themselves and a third boy, showing the third boy being stabbed and hanged.
Police charged the two boys with making a written threat to kill or harm another person, a second-degree felony.
Ocala Police Sgt. Russ Kern appeared on national television Thursday morning defending the department’s decision to arrest the two boys. Kern appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and CNN’s “American Morning,” among others.
“If something had happened and we did not (act), then everybody would be saying, ‘Why didn’t you do anything?’ ” Kern said Thursday afternoon. “We don’t have the luxury anymore of saying this is just child’s play.”
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Marion County School District employees said they had no choice but to involve the police. In the aftermath of an incident last year in which two West Port High School students engaged in a sex act in a classroom, the district started a mandatory policy of reporting any suspicious incidents, spokesman Kevin Christian said.
Sigh.
Who of us didn’t make random doodles as children that might be percieved as violent and possibly threatening in today’s society? Hell, we’re living in a world where kids can’t play “cowboys and indians”, not because it’s anti-PC but because a kid shouts “bang bang!”
Should threats be taken seriously? Sure.
But should everything be taken as a threat?
