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Title: School Calls Cops, Cops Call Child Services on Boy Who Made Harmless 'Brownies' Remark
Source:
Reason
URL Source: http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/29/s ... ls-cops-cops-call-child-servic
Published: Jun 29, 2016
Author: Robby Soave
Post Date: 2016-06-30 06:17:45 by Deckard
Keywords: Police State
Views: 2659
Comments: 35
This might be the most absurd case of a school mishandling a disciplinary issue yet: an elementary school in Collingswood, New Jersey, called the police because a nine-year-old male student allegedly made a racist remark. As a result, the state's child services division has opened a wholly unnecessary investigation into the boy's parents. It isn't cleared what he actually said—the school, William P. Tatem Elementary, has not returned my request for comment. But a local news story suggests that he did not use the word "brownies" to refer to persons of color. He was actually referring to the chocolate baked good, according to his parents. Given that he made the statement during a class party—it was the last day of school—this explanation makes sense. (His last name sounds Hispanic, if that matters.) In either case, the school had absolutely no reason to involve the police. Administrators should be perfectly capable of dealing with this sort of thing on their own. His teacher, or principal, could have asked the boy and his accuser about the incident and rendered some verdict. They could have punished him, if punishment was called for. Instead, a young boy was interrogated by an officer about a harmless comment he made while in school. It's just never necessary to involve the police in perfectly routine, non-violent, non-criminal disputes between children. The school's decision to do so is indefensible. But according to Philly.com, these kinds of automatic appeals to police authority are common: The incident, which has sparked outrage among some parents, was one of several in the last month when Collingswood police have been called to look into school incidents that parents think hardly merit criminal investigation. Superintendent Scott Oswald estimated that on some occasions over the last month, officers may have been called to as many as five incidents per day in the district of 1,875 students. This has created concern among parents in the 14,000-resident borough, who have phoned their elected officials, met with Mayor James Maley, blasted social-media message boards, and even launched a petition calling on the Camden County Prosecutor's Office to "stop mandated criminal investigation of elementary school students." It gets worse. Philly.com is also reporting that "the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency." I will be following up with this agency, the police, and the school. The school turned a non-issue into a police issues, and the cops turned a police issue into a child services issue. All because school officials think it's a police officer's job to tell students to behave themselves, rather than the students' teachers. Truly, it's incidents like these that confirm the suspicions of many Americans (and many Donald Trump supporters) that their country is too politically correct. 
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Not just the school, why are police responding to stupid stuff like this? I found this one: Why police were called to a South Jersey third-grade class party (philly.com 6/29/2016)
#2. To: TrappedInMd (#1)
Not just the school, why are police responding to stupid stuff like this? Indeed, it sounds like an ipen and shut lawsuit and i only say lawsuit because criminal charges cant be pressed against pigs. But yeah since their was no law being broken , their was no law that needed enforcing, and law enforcement ment had no requirement nor right to be there..... Ahhh Jersey.... what a stinking armpit.
From your link : The incident, which has sparked outrage among some parents, was one of several in the last month when Collingswood police have been called to look into school incidents that parents think hardly merit criminal investigation. Superintendent Scott Oswald estimated that on some occasions over the last month, officers may have been called to as many as five incidents per day in the district of 1,875 students. The increased police involvement follows a May 25 meeting among the Collingswood Police Department, school officials, and representatives from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, where school officials and police both said they were told to report to police any incidents that could be considered criminal, including what Police Chief Kevin Carey called anything "as minor as a simple name-calling incident that the school would typically handle internally." The police and schools were also advised that they should report "just about every incident" to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency, Carey said. Apparently this is a directive from the County Prosecutor's Office and agreed to by the school. Just when you think that schools can't get any more tyrannical, you see something like this. And some folks still don't think we live in a police state.
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#3. To: TrappedInMd, Titorite2 (#1)
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