12 Year-Old Hauled From School in Handcuffs For Doodling
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, February 5, 2010, 6:23 AM
This seems a bit severe. A 12 year-old New York City girl was hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling on a desk.
The New York Daily News reported:
A 12-year-old Queens girl was hauled out of school in handcuffs for an artless offense – doodling her name on her desk in erasable marker, the Daily News has learned.
Alexa Gonzalez was scribbling a few words on her desk Monday while waiting for her Spanish teacher to pass out homework at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, she said.
“I love my friends Abby and Faith,” the girl wrote, adding the phrases “Lex was here. 2/1/10″ and a smiley face.
But instead of simply cleaning off the doodles after class, Alexa landed in some adult-sized trouble for using her lime-green magic marker.
She was led out of school in cuffs and walked to the precinct across the street, where she was detained for several hours, she and her mother said.
“I started crying, like, a lot,” said Alexa. “I made two little doodles. … It could be easily erased. To put handcuffs on me is unnecessary.” Alexa, who had a stellar attendance record, hasn’t been back to school since, adding, “I just thought I’d get a detention. I thought maybe I would have to clean [the desk].”
ADVERTISEMENT
-
Featured Story:
Horrible… Obama Tells Foolish Supporters: I’m Not Over-Spending… “I’m Running to Pay Down Our Debt”
Published May 23, 2012 at 11:51 pm - 69 Comments
BigAlSouth commented:
She should be grateful that the Idiocracy-in-Charge did not claim that the marker was a weapon.
Militant Conservative commented:
I used to carve up the desks with a pocket knife! The public school system is about compliance. Thus when they graduate (maybe) they will be good compliant democrat voters. Keep the hopey changey, I’ll keep my Guns and freedom. Good luck LEX.
jerryl commented:
the nanny state of nyc at it again scareing a 12 yo over doodleling
Betsy Ross commented:
Too bad it wasn’t a Catholic school. The nun would have just rapped her knuckles with a ruler and then made her clean the desk with her own spit…
SunShine commented:
Ummm… Let’s see here… New York is notoriously liberal and voting Democrat. I’m sure that she was treated this way for the ‘good’ of her peer group. I don’t really see a problem – you get what you pay for. Next week, during General Assembly, they’ve promised to teach these minors how to march stiff legged – they’ll look so nice in their jackboots!
sliderblaze commented:
wow…
my sisters put deer balls and d!ck hanging up in some kids locker… (funniest prank ever) kid just happened to be a huge dick and a minority, today i’m sure they’d be charged with a hate crime. (the school tried to blame it on me, but, turns out, i was absent that day)
Mike commented:
I don’t agree with taking her to jail – that is inefficient. But she did damage property that wasn’t hers and that she had no right to damage.
The best solution would be to have her clean off the desk and send her home with a fine – say $100 for defacing public property. That way, when her Mom had to reach into her pocket and pay, the girl would recognize the seriousness of said act. People only change their behaviour when there is a cost associated with it that is greater than the benefit.
eeloob commented:
bet if she wrote “i love Obama” she’d have
skipped a grade
Hedgehog commented:
If she had written “I Love Obama” she would have been named Student of the Month.
aprilnovember811 commented:
Just an observation, but I have a 12 year old, and she doesn’t look 16. What’s with all of the make up, and earrings?
howdareyouaskformyname commented:
Yeah, $100 for writing with an erasable marker is fair. In fact, if the fine doesn’t have to match the damages then we can fund the entire public school system with fines. That will teach the little bastages.
I always wonder what goes through the minds of the cops who do these sorts of things. The one who gave Treacher the ticket did not witness the accident so had to have been doing something he knew to be wrong. Same with the cop who took the little girl off in handcuffs. Cops like that need to have their badges taken and they need to be sent far, far away because they are a much greater threat than a little girl with a marker could ever be.
BigAlSouth commented:
Mike #7. Do you have kids? $100 fine? Damage to Property by an erasable marker?
My 14 year old had After School Detention for being late to class because I did not get him to school in time. His punishment was to sit in the library, and miss the bus home, meaning I had to take off work early and come get him. They should have let him ride the bus, but required the offending party, me, to come to school and sit in the principal’s office for an hour.
Franco commented:
Had she been a bigger meaner kid she would have gotten away with it, I suspect
Franco commented:
If I were a student at that school I’d start writing on desks “Free Alexa”. Public school teachers are generally afraid of “creating terrorists” don’t they see they are alienating kids to authority by being so heavy-handed? BTW she’s a juvenile how come her name and photo are published?
Nbdy commented:
someone should ask our safe schools czar how he feels about these kinds of tactics — but make sure that if he visits with the girl that it’s a supervised visit …
BertoGem commented:
I did the same thing in sophmore English. the teacher made me clean it up.
Nahanni commented:
Reason #9563527596 not to send your children to government indoctrination centers….errr….schools.
Gail F commented:
Some of the replies — on the newspaper site and this one — are as scary as the story. A $100 fine? Are you nuts? The girl should have been required to clean every desk in the room, and maybe given a detention. Instead, the girl was suspended and the family had to go to family court! From the story:
“Alexa is still suspended from her school, her mother said. She and her mom went to family court on Tuesday, where Alexa was assigned eight hours of community service, a book report and an essay on what she learned from the experience.”
Hmm… “What I Learned from Being Handcuffed, Suspended, and Taken to Family Court for Writing on My Desk With an Erasable Marker” 1) The School Board Needs to be Replaced 2) The Police Officers Concerned Need to be Fired 3) My School Employees are Wimps 4) The Judge at Family Court Needs to be Replaced 5) We Need to Move to Another State 6) All the Adults in this Town are Crazy.
Nicole commented:
None of this police state BS is necessary in a homogeneous nation. A child would also be taught proper behavior in a homogeneous nation.
Rhoda R commented:
Nicole, I sincerely hope that that was sarcasm.
seven commented:
This is why we need vouchers. The gubment schools are out of control. 100 years ago a little spankin after cleaning up the mess and doing it again would have made her strong of character.
Surprised they didn’t taser her.
C-Christian Soldier commented:
1.school desk – public property-
2.my tax $$$ paid for it!
3.she was defacing public property…
4.a disciplinary action was necessary…
5.handcuffs-a little extreme-
C-CS
Saint commented:
I think the same thing Seven. In fact, I think the public school system should be abolished and replaced entirely by a voucher system over the course of 15 years.
It would break the useless teacher unions, end forced busing, give students more of a financial incentive to stud, and ensure that the schools, at the very least, are more competently run by a staff that is professional, not demagogue.
Cclassroom Warrior commented:
During forty years as a high school teacher I ly learned that the most severe and punitive punishments are inflicted only on those who “committ” trivially unimportant “crimes” and those kids who are no danger to the self-seeking cabal of leftist eduweenies who have decimated out public schools.
Criminals disquised as students selling and using drugs, bringing weapons to school, commiting heinous felonies on campus are ignored while the degenerated eduweenie bureaucratic bullies that run our schools viciously go after those they know who are weak and who the educrats do not fear.
Poor Alexa is likely a shy quiet girl who the teachers that the eduweenie bullies can safely punish. Far too many of today’s public schools have not become just a failure but a travesty damaging millions of our children and capable of nothing other than consuming tax dollars as they circle their wagons to protect the violent, amoral, and criminal, a performance I witnessed daily for far to many years.
jonyjoe101 commented:
I prefer the good old days in Texas where we use to get whacked when we misbehave in school. You just got paddled and hopefully learned a valuable lesson, none of this going to jail stuff. Usually they didn’t even tell your parents you got whacked, because that meant further more painful punishment when you got home.
It was a kindler, gentler more polite society. No one dared talk back to the teacher. The teachers weren’t scared of the students.
Now this poor girl will be too traumatized to go back to school and will probably dropout and be a drain on society.
The good old days when children actually learned.
greenfairie commented:
One thing I’ve learned in my job is that idiocy and a lack of common sense are mandatory if you want to be employed in the public school system.
mike d commented:
1. Proper discipline was maybe stay after school to clean desks for a week. If that. Kids have been drawing on desks since the caveman days. thats all we did in 4th grade. my best bro, who used posicle sticks to draw 19th century fighting ships on his desk (while I drew stick figure motocross races) graduated with a degree in architecture from Berkeley. He then served for 15 years as a naval aviator and decorated vet of both Gulf Wars. So yeah…
2. Hancuffs??? Handcuffs??? On a 12 year old girl who drew on her desk???? What”s that smell? Oh yeah: Big Lawsuit!
3. Example # 45 Gabillion of the total loss of common sense under rules propogated by unionized brainless thug school adminstrators. The Revolution WILL be televised.
Paul_In_Houston commented:
This sure sounds to me like a mind-boggling example of “zero tolerance” (which some prefer because such a policy requires “zero thinking”).
-
Joanne commented:
Don’t the cops have enough to do without having to put a 12 year old in cuffs for scribbling on a school desk. What a waste of taxpayers monies! Haven’t these people heard of Mr. Clean White Erasers?
Stupid is as stupid does.
Koblog commented:
You put your kids in public indoctrination centers that after thirteen years of “schooling” fail even to teach kids how to read and write, much less what it means to be a free citizen, and you deserve what you get.
Public “education” has failed and is wrecking this nation.
It’s not about education. It’s an excuse to have a teachers union and expensive pensions and benefits.
I have no sympathy for parents who willingly place their children in such a dangerous environment.
Don Rodrigo commented:
I don’t agree with taking her to jail – that is inefficient. But she did damage property that wasn’t hers and that she had no right to damage.
The best solution would be to have her clean off the desk and send her home with a fine – say $100 for defacing public property. That way, when her Mom had to reach into her pocket and pay, the girl would recognize the seriousness of said act. People only change their behaviour when there is a cost associated with it that is greater than the benefit.
Uh, Mike . . . it was an erasable marker? A few stern words from the teacher and making her erase the doodles would have sufficed. Get a grip, guy.
TiminPhx commented:
You can commit a crime against a fellow citizen and it’s no big deal. The left will do everything they can to defend you.
But you go against the government (ironically, this doesn’t include the officer working his beat) and they are going to go after you big time.
Scrapiron commented:
The teachers, a product of the liberal colleges, have all became idiots. Do you have to test out insane to become a teacher? Something is wrong nationwide. Could it be the teachers unions. If so it’s time to ban them.
wanumba commented:
Cclassroom Warrior
February 5th, 2010 | 12:19 pm | #27
During forty years as a high school teacher I ly learned that the most severe and punitive punishments are inflicted only on those who “committ” trivially unimportant “crimes” and those kids who are no danger to the self-seeking cabal of leftist eduweenies who have decimated out public schools.
………………………..
So true! The real trouble-makers get off time after time and the nothing stuff is dogpile.
Perversely also, this sort of thing enters a nice kid into the criminal justice system … what a charming way to “get” a kid for years and years beyond. The schools have some of the just meanest people on the planet in them now – classroom tyrants.
You can tell the character of a man or woman by the way they treat kids (and the elderly) when they think they aren’t observed.
YatYas commented:
Is it possible this 12 year old like quite few kids today, copted an attitude when confronted about marking on the desk and got put in cuffs. Schools have become too dependant on police officers to handle simple issues, but parents and society coddle kids too much these days. Frankly a pair of cuffs on a 12 year old is not that traumatic, although in my day it would have been a paddle, which was traumatic to the buttockss.
Shooter commented:
Her folks probably did not vote for obama, and teacher found out…
or she refused to play along w/indoctrination…hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.