Boys arrested for stick figure drawings

OCALA, Florida (AP) -- Two boys were arrested for making pencil-and-crayon stick figure drawings depicting a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung, police said. The children, charged with a felony, were taken from school in handcuffs.

The 9- and 10-year-old boys were arrested Monday and charged with making a written threat to kill or harm another person. They were also suspended from school.

One drawing showed the two boys standing on either side of the other boy and "holding knives pointed through" his body, according to a police report. The figures were identified by written names or initials.

Another drawing showed a stick figure hanging, tears falling from his eyes, with two other stick figures standing below him. Other pieces of scrap paper listed misspelled profanities and the initials of the boy who was allegedly threatened.

www.cnn.com...

I understand that after Columbine, we need to monitor the kids more closely.... and I'm all for punishment etc... but is this too much ?

What the fock??? Are law makers in America all whack jobs?
Thats absolutly unbeleivable! There is no "social climate", no "situation", no "reasonable" justification for treating a child in that manner, Period!
Its .....im lost for words frankly.
What next? Arrest and cuff a toddler for spitting out a pacifier in public?
Grow some brains people, my god!

This is outrageous, do the american goverment not understand that by arresting people like this, for such a petty thing, is only contributing to the problem.

Only in America.

Hmmmm, looks like I might be on the other side of the fence here. Should those children be arrested - I'm not sure, I don't know all of the details, however I am fully in support of investigating. If the 2 youths in question murdered the other child, and then these pictures came to light, I would have to imagine that there would be a huge response as to why didn't the authorities do something about this.
I personally am in favor of it.

I find this increasingly ridiculous, I was a teacher for 7 years and I had seen worst pictures draw by kids than that depicting teachers.

You find them on the halls, on the floor and anywhere that the students and faculty can find them.

From love letters to hate letters.

In a similar situation recently my 10 year old son, who has been reading and recently saw the movie"A Series of Unfortunate Events" drew a picture of Jim Carrey's character holding a knife, his teacher saw the picture, reported it to the pricipal who then called me. I explained what the situation was and the principal replied "well I guess we don't have to suspend him then"I think the political correctness is way out of hand!Children have always drawn pictures to express themselves, now they won't even be able to that!

This is just stupid. What ever happened to freedom of expression? Conservatives are always bitching that Liberals are going to far with being PC, when in all actuality, more freedoms have been taken away due to PC under the Bush administration than any other Liberal administration ever.

[edit on 1/26/05 by Kidfinger]

Originally posted by jeeze louise
"well I guess we don't have to suspend him then"I think the political correctness is way out of hand!Children have always drawn pictures to express themselves, now they won't even be able to that!

Exactly, Jeeze, they do expressing anger on drawings or writing about it is good for them, specially teens because they hold some much mixed emotions due to their age.

Arresting children is not going to make the matter better, for the contrary they will hold their anger inside until is to late.

Our country is lacking on support groups and help for our children due to lack of fund for programs.

A good school would have taking the children including the suspected victim and sat them all together and let them explain what they problems was.

A good school with well trained teachers and counseling would have dig out the root of the problem without police intervention first.

This actions only show how we are starting to allowed others to play with our children lives, and we are losing our children to the system.

Now if let's not forget that we don't know the whole story about what went on before they did the drawings.

The situation with children drawing death (to "anyone") is plain normal....I was once a kid, and remember (and still have some) pictures I drew'up...killing everyone to anything....so it just show's how our culture is going crazy....let's start treating these "Kids" as "kids" not as mini-adults. They are just children and be treated as such, I find in my personal life with children that the schools are going over board with how they treat them like adults...children need love, security and order to thrive in life...not the threat of "suspension" etc. and send the kid home (sure makes them feel welcome), they should treat the case with a few days after school, that would be the right thing to do (then they know what they did was bad) while still showing that the school is there school.

But would hate t'a see the Iraq childrens drawings look like

Anywho...my 2 cents,
Y'r Canadian friend,
Sven

Hah like I said in my forum im sure everyone of you has seen, ALL cops are crooked. OMG but thats rediculious, a 10 year old charged with a felony?! What has this world come to ? That is the dumbest thing I have EVER heard of. Heck I did that when I was in grade school and all the teacher did was take it and throw it away. But geez people, that is just more than retarted. God, I could laugh all day about that BS.

Investigate? Question? Council? YES

Arrest? HELL NO

Morons....

How many of us drew pics of horrible things happening to hated teachers?

This is rediculous, I don't even see how you can legally charge a nine year old with a felony when he probably can't even spell half the words in the miranda rights. There's no possible way that these children can understand the ramifications of their of actions, or even what was so wrong with what they did. I understand zero tolerance, and that safety in schools should be of paramount importance but it seems like the people involved forgot what it's like to be a child. Perhaps the kid portrayed in the drawings was a bully, the drawings were a good way for the children to express their feelings towards the other child without incurring violence from the bully. Then again, these two could've been the bully. But either way, if these children are convicted what are you going to do? Send them to juvenile hall with a bunch of kids older than them who've actually stabbed, beaten or robbed people? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that will turn them into productive members of society. I remember when I was a kid, drawing a picture of He-Man stabbing Skeletor did nothing more than get my teacher to tell me to pay attention to the math lesson.

Arrest was probably not the best solution, but this is very serious. Bullying has been on the rise in public schools in recent years and there have been many programs launched to teach young children about these dangers. There have also been plenty of high-profile examples of children committing violent crimes. A death threat may seem pretty frivilous to some of you, but I don't imagine the threatened child in this case found it amusing. I think it's only prudent to investigate and if nessicary punish these children. How would you feel if it were your child trheatened? A death threat is nothing to take lightly. We know that children are capable of murder and these children made the threat. Where is the problem? And Shadowflux, who cares if they can't spell some of the words in the miranda rights? The same can also be said for many adult murderers.

[edit on 26-1-2005 by spike]

Originally posted by creamsoda
Hah like I said in my forum im sure everyone of you has seen, ALL cops are crooked. OMG but thats rediculious, a 10 year old charged with a felony?!

This still doesn't make the cops crooked !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They're doing thier jobs here according to the law... they didn't make the laws...

I don't agree with the felony charge either, but lets wait and see what else comes out of this story..

I used to draw pictures making fun of my teachers liek with there heads on fire and stuff..... I also used to draw pictures of guns from tv shows and stuff. One of my friends was writing a story in school and it had a reasonable ammount of violence with some shooting and stuff. It was a good story and we were in sixth grade the teacher yelled at him and called his parents and he got in trouble. Schools are messed up....

Originally posted by elevatedone
Other pieces of scrap paper listed misspelled profanities

That just goes to prove that the education system is failing. They don't even teach kids how to use the dictionary anymore. (Hands up anyone who didn't look up naughty words in the dictionary when you were a kid)

Edit due to wrong grammar

[edit on 26-1-2005 by Pisky]

Once, in elementary school, we had to pick a poem, and illustrate it.
I found the following in a Mother Goose book once upon a time...about an old woman and her cat (and I illustrated it as such), but I still got called to the principal's office.

I love little pussy,
her coat is so warm,
and if I do not hurt her,
she'll do me no harm.

So I'll sit by the fire,
and give her some food,
then pussy will love me,
and think that I'm good.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Once, in elementary school, we had to pick a poem, and illustrate it.
I found the following in a Mother Goose book once upon a time...about an old woman and her cat (and I illustrated it as such), but I still got called to the principal's office.

Gaz... that made me think of something.. when I was in the 9th grade, in art class we had to draw / paint a picture that told something...

meaning like.... [an apple a day keeps the doctor away ]

well, I talked my best friend into drawing

A picture of the world... and then two dogs in a "69"...

you know... " its a dog eat dog world"...

yeah... he was suspended for 3 days, I had to call his parents and apologize for getting him into trouble...

They'd have loved dreamlandmafia's old avatar

I'm going to have to say that this is ridiculous. Because it is.

When I was a boy, not only did I draw pictures of being stabbed, but also of them being shot with guns and having pianos falling on their heads.

If I was feeling particularly wicked, my friends and I would point our hands like guns at each other and cry "Bang!"

And on a particularly bad day, I might take a cap gun and run around and shoot people with it.

Today, I would be locked up and fed only mouldy bread and muddy water. The only consolation is that the folks trying to get rid of the death penalty would keep me alive. (use of sarcasm.)