Thursday quickies – schools, walkie-talkies

The sheriff in Port Orange, FL took the unusual step of doing a public perp walk with someone who threatened to shoot up an middle school… who is 11 years old.

“And starting Monday, your little cherub? We’re going to start publishing his face and doing perp walks with him when we take him into custody, and then we’re going to show pictures of you, the parents. Because you don’t want to raise your kid, Sheriff Chitwood is going to raise them,” he said in the video.  CNN

Seems the sheriff received over 50 calls after the 11 year old Facetimed several kids with pictures of his collection. He also had a list of folks to shoot (which he claimed was a joke). Detectives say they were unable to verify that none of the weapons was real – supposedly they are all paintball guns, but who knows on the edged stuff.

I kind of like the way the sheriff is going on this – if your kid does something illegal, they should lose the right to anonymity. Name ’em and shame ’em – but be right.

And then we move to Virginia, where a kid was suspended for failing to report that another kid showed him a bullet he had brought to school. In other words, he didn’t inform fast enough.

“They’re like, ‘Thank you so much for reporting, now you’re suspended.’ And it’s like, ‘I did the right thing and now I’m in trouble,’” attorney Tim Anderson said in a phone call Friday. “They’re ruining this kid’s academic career by putting a suspension on his middle school record.”

The incident happened last week as the boy’s class was preparing to take a standardized test. Anderson said a student pulled out a bullet and showed it to the 11-year-old right before the test started.

The boy reported the bullet after the test and a subsequent class… and got the same two day suspension as the offending kid. Not for being an accessory, but for failing to report it fast enough to to suit the school.

“That was quite shocking to [his] mom that one, he would receive the exact same punishment that the kid that brought the bullet to school received. But two, that’s not even a punishable violation,” Anderson said.NBC News

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond, which runs the school, seems to think it is. Hope they have that explicitly written in a policy somewhere – the fact that there is already a lawer involved leads me to think there will be more to follow. What do they think the kid is going to do with a bullet sans gun? Throw it?

Remember the ‘splodey pagers Ed wrote about yesterday? Well, they ain’t all… the day after the pagers went boom, so did multiple Hezbollah walkie-talkies. Hezbollah claims 9 dead and 300 wounded.

The new blasts hit a country still roiling with confusion and anger after Tuesday’s pager bombings, which appeared to be a complex Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members that caused civilian casualties, too. Tuesday’s bombings killed at least 12 people, including two children, and wounded some 2,800 others.

The second wave also deepens concern over the potentially indiscriminate casualties caused in the attacks, in which hundreds of blasts went off wherever the holder of the pager happened to be — in homes, cars, at grocery stores and in cafes, often with family or bystanders nearby.

While the pagers were used by Hezbollah members, there was no guarantee who was holding the device at the time of the blast. Also, many of the casualties were not Hezbollah fighters, but members of the group’s extensive civilian operations mainly serving Lebanon’s Shiite community.

At least two health workers were among those killed Tuesday. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators work for Hezbollah-linked organizations, and an unknown number had pagers.  AP

Seems the Israelis have been inspired by some of the WWI dirty tricks – gifted vest-pocket Bibles made of gun-cotton in particular*. Guess it matters who you work for.

* The Sea Devil’s Fo’c’sle”  by Lowell Thomas, 1929

Category: Israel, Lebanon