Steak Knife Found In Lunchbox, 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested
http://www.wftv.com/news/14858405/detail.html
A 10-year old Ocala girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. She now faces a felony charge after being arrested. The school and the sheriff’s office disagree on the reason for the arrest.School officials say the 5th grader was brown-bagging it. She brought a piece of steak for her lunch, but she also brought a steak knife. That’s when deputies were called.
It happened in the cafeteria at Sunrise Elementary School. The 10-year-old used the knife to cut the meat.
“She did not use it inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn’t pull it out and brandish it. Nothing of that nature,” explained Marion County School Spokesman Kevin Christian.
But a couple of teachers took the utensil and called the sheriff. When deputies arrived, they were unable to get the child’s parents on the phone, so they arrested her and took her to the county’s juvenile assessment center.
“And we didn’t handcuff her or treat her like a criminal. But, we took her to the assessment center to be assessed,” said Capt. James Pogue, Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
School officials said it doesn’t matter what the knife was being used for. They said they had no choice.
“Anytime there’s a weapon on campus, yes, we have to report it and we aggressively report it because we don’t want to take any chances, regardless,” Christian said.
But the sheriff’s office said the extreme measures in what some may say was a harmless incident had to do with school policy, not theirs.
“But once we’re notified, we have to take some type of action,” Pogue explained.
The student now faces a felony charge for the possession of a weapon on school property and the principal suspended her for ten days. The parents of the girl could not be reached for comment.
The sheriff’s office has turned the case over to the State Attorney’s Office.
Unfortunately, school officials failed to confiscate thousands of other dangerous weapons found on the campus, including pencils, pens, scissors, forks, rulers, drafting compasses, yardsticks, combs, baseball bats, fire extinguishers, desks, chairs, textbooks, socks, chains, keyboards, cafeteria trays, wooden doorstops, staplers, jump ropes, purses, lunch boxes, full soda cans and bottles, dishes…
I mean, come on. I can *almost* understand taking it away from her, but taking her downtown, charging her with a felony, and suspending her for 10 days?
I’m 24. I never thought that at this age I’d be griping about “how things were in my day”, but here goes: I won my first pocketknife (a Barlow identical to the one on the left) during Sunday School with “points” I racked up by memorizing Bible verses. From about the third grade on I had a pocket knife in my pocket at school, and so did all my friends. I continued to carry progressively meaner-looking knives until high school, when I replaced my pocket knife with a multi-tool (including a knife). It was never a big deal, and the only times I remember actually thinking to put away or surrender a knife for safekeeping was when I was crossing a border or getting on an airplane for a short-term missions trip. Adults at school knew that most of the boys had pocket knives on them, but aside from a boy brandishing a knife at my school in fifth grade (he was expelled), it was never brought up.
Times change and our policies must change with them, but I think sometimes that we miss the forest for the trees.