" Ever seen a digital timer? Your smartphone has one. Your stove probably has one. NYC Times Square uses one to drop the crystal ball… "
But the entire point is whether one puts together something in a way to purposefully cause fear, and to resemble an incendiary device. The entire world can’t be expected to look at the guts of something and understand what each part means, and determine if it is a threat. Especially not a school full of teenagers.
Interesting to me, the comments I had read about how this kid was known by those at the school for being a creator, fixing things…wonder how? He was a ninth grader, so this was his first year in high school. So they’d known him for, what, two weeks?
If they’re going after the kid, they need to sack the science teacher. He saw it and wasn’t “alarmed.”
According to some of our CC posters (and presumably their news troughs) he should have confiscated the thing and rang for Gitmo.
Clearly the science teacher is fifth column… because, well, science.
We can’t be responsible if you read incomplete stories, busdriver. The stories I read when the incident became public was that the kid said he’d cobbled together the device in 20 minutes. Nobody was saying that he was a genius: they were saying that this kid liked to take things apart, fix things and build things.
Nerds immediately came forward because we defend our own. We understand the impulse to tinker, to understand how something works, to create something and want to show it to others.
Heaven forfend we’d have creativity and curiousity in the schools! Heaven forfend! Schools are no place for kids who like to understand how things work! Lock them up!
Jeez. We homeschoolers are just thinking to ourselves, yep, that’s why we homeschool, to keep our children from anti-intellectuals in the classroom.
Just a heads-up: actual bombs don’t have a countdown clock. It’d be totally stupid. Those countdon clocks are only a visual device for films and tv shows.
I know @harvestmoon1’s friend is trying to think critically but, erm, s/he doesn’t succeed very well.
Anyway the adults ALL knew it wasn’t a bomb (didn’t act for most of the day and didn’t evacuate the school). They weren’t scared.
The kid brought something he’d assembled and that wasn’t a bomb. If he had other motives than trying to impress his teachers the way geeks do, there’s no evidence of it, only speculation.
In any case, let’s assume he did want to disturb a class: the typical result of that is detention. If he did succeed in such a nefarious plan, suspension. Not arrest. And there’s no evidence that he did it to disturb a class, nor does the school allege he did.
If we had to handcuff and arrest all 14 year olds doing st stupid, we would never do anything else all day long. When something’s harmless, let’s not get the police involved.
I wonder what went on in the principal’s head that, after 3-4 hours with the device, s/he decided to call the police…
Yeah. If you see someone walking around with a briefcase with a countdown timer display on it, you should definitely be afraid the person is carrying a bomb-- provided you happen to live inside a Batman comic. Otherwise, not so much.
That’s not what I’m saying… I’m saying why did the principal first think it was harmless, then change his/her mind and * hours later* call the police?
Clearly nobody thought it was a bomb so the police shouldn’t have been involved. Why were they? What’s the reasoning?
The fact he showed his work to a teacher doesn’t support the idea of a prank or scare tactics, but let’s say he decided to do that: still not a police matter but an in-school discipline matter resulting in detention or, if the facts were egregious, suspension. Not arrest.
The fact there have been tensions in the community, that the country is trying to get back on track supporting innovative students and go up from bottom-rank in science, also plays into it.
Everybody’s trying to pull this apart is puzzling, because whether the boy is at fault or not, the principal and police clearly are. (As a principal, you don’t call the police to decide whether something is a prank; the police isn’t allowed to question a minor without parents once they’ve asked for them.)
Agree that there’s a bit too much of one-upmanship in the “let’s make him an example” but whatever, that’s no harm to anyone.
Kids get reputations which may stay with them. Our S got a rep from early on in grade school for being able to solve things and read things others couldn’t. It stayed with him for a very, very long time. Even if this was 9th grade and the kid was new to the school (having just come up from 8th grade), he could have a rep that followed him over the years, even from his prior school. Maybe he’s building things during recess and weekends as well. Some folks are tinkerers and repairers–thank goodness because some of us do have things that break!
One summer, because S had his phone stolen, he was able to take my broken phone and a coworkers broken phone and cobble together one working phone between the two broken ones. We were all amazed that he could do that.
People are on-edge these days because of things that have been happening at schools and other places that historically were safe. Having an alarm go off during class with something that is wires put together can easily stir up concerns about safety. Inventors have been known to make things accidentally or purposefully dangerous.
Why is that inaccurate? If hollywood movies and comic books have consistently portrayed bombs with countdown clocks would it not be safe to assume that some high schoolers and perhaps an english teacher might have that thought come to mind when seeing this device?
And with the general climate of violence in our schools that teacher just might conclude it is better to be safe than sorry and proceed to report it?
I have no problem with the English teacher reporting it. But the principal KNEW that it was a clock. The police who arrested him KNEW that it was a clock.
Right so while I will never defend this kids actions in bringing the device to school, I will reiterate that perhaps someone in law enforcement felt it was important to make a very strong statement here. These officers are charged with the protection and safety of our children. This is not a game.
Not faulting the English teacher.reporting the device to the principal along with the kid - that makes sense.
What doesn’t is 1° not checking with the engineering teacher who’s declared the object safe (after kid claimed it was shown to teacher - if only to check whether kid is lying) 2° thinking what when the kid says “it’s a clock” they’re trying to scare someone (wouldn’t “it’s a bomb hahha” work better?), while all involved clearly know it’s not a bomb 3° calling the police several hours later for what is, at most, a discipline issue.
None of this makes sense logically, countdown clock or not. So, not sure why highlighting that fact sheds light on anything.
I certainly agree that given the appearance of the thing it was not wildly unreasonable to try to determine whether he was trying to scare people with a fake bomb hoax; however, a simple conversation with the engineering teacher he showed it to, apparently immediately after entering the building, should have been enough to determine that he wasn’t.
Having a little talk with him about the student code of conduct and how this could be construed to break it would not have been a big deal, if done properly, without threats or demeaning actions.
End of story.
And no, he is 14 years old and treating him “like an adult” is NEVER justified. Because he isn’t one. And even if he were trying a bomb hoax, he is 14 years old, and what he does should be viewed in that context: 14 years old.
Uh, no. The story started out that a kid who liked to tinker with stuff decided to make something to show what he does to his teacher, and the kid said he threw it together in about 20 minutes the night before. I did not detect any claims of “genius.” I saw descriptions of a tinkerer with some intellectual curiosity who liked to tinker with stuff.
Perhaps it depends on your news source…
B-)
Un, no again. They said he was known IN MIDDLE SCHOOL, not in the HS. That was why he wanted to bring the thing, as he has said repeatedly.
“And no, he is 14 years old and treating him “like an adult” is NEVER justified. Because he isn’t one. And even if he were trying a bomb hoax, he is 14 years old, and what he does should be viewed in that context: 14 years old”
maybe yes maybe no…
but his dad is going to play into this story more and more, if the story does not fade first. the kid is very possibly a pawn of a dad looking for attention/ or with an agenda.
@busdriver11
“If they thought that he was attempting to bring something that looked like a bomb, in order to make people feel threatened,”
What makes you think he was trying “to make people feel thretened”? To me, that’s not a logical conclusion to what happened. The device was in his backpack, he wasn’t showing it to anyone and therefore it’s hard to believe he was intending to scare anyone. He was very surprised that people reacted that way. And he was surprised because – he’s a kid. With a kid’s mentality & reaction.
@HarvestMoon1
“But would you agree then @katliamom that he should not have brought such a device to school?” Perhaps… but since he didn’t see it as threatening, it makes sense that he wouldn’t have thought there was anything wrong with bringing it to school. Again, you could call it a 14-year old’s naivete.
And the reprecussions – handcuffing, interrogation – were totally out of proportion to what happened – adults behaving badly, IMO.