There's nothing like a good old-fashioned food fight. Although apparently in Chicago (dare I take the Fox News route and mention it is Obama's home town and then try to imply/explicitly state some kind of causal relationship?), food fights are akin to a murder rampage or a drunk driving charge, as they all land you in the same place: jail. Did I mention these cuisine warriors were children in elementary school? Come on Chicago. I know you lost the Olympics, but don't take out your frustration on the kids. As the New York Times article explains, “'My children have to appear in court,' Erica Russell, the mother of two eighth-grade girls who spent eight hours in jail, said Tuesday. 'They were handcuffed, slammed in a wagon, had their mug shots taken and treated like real criminals.'”
Somehow this seems ridiculous. Children having a food fight should have recess taken away, not be carted off to the police station. The notion that charges are being filed are absurd, but now many students have to go to court to keep a misdemeanor off of their records.
This says it all, “By the end of the day, 25 of the students, ages 11 to 15, had been rounded up, arrested, taken from school and put in jail. A spokesman for the Chicago police said the charges were reckless conduct, a misdemeanor.” Taken from school to jail. Fantastic message, city of Chicago. Great lesson you're teaching the kids. And apparently it's the only one, because you pulled them out of school.
This is absolutley absurd...Might I go out on a limb and guess that this occurred at an underpriveledged, inner city school? My guess is the school has been physically and financially eroding for a decade or two and the administration was looking to dump these kids off on Chicago's finest. Dentention (and legitimate after school programs for that matter) costs money and with cities everywhere slashing budgets left and right in this troubled economy paying already fedup teachers overtime just isn't in the picture.
ReplyDeletehaha that is so funny. i cant believe they took kids to jail over something like a food fight. i would like to have a little more background information on this story though. i mean, maybe the kids had already been warned after several other incidents and this was the last straw. there are so many different things that could have happened- either way, i think jail is a bit much.
ReplyDeleteEven if the children had been warned, that's completely ridiculous. What's even stranger is that the police cooperated. I could imagine, as Scott said, an inner city school being eager to get rid of misbehaving children. They were probably just trying to scare them into following the rules. But I don't understand how they could actually be taken to jail for a food fight. Maybe teachers were scared of getting attacked with sporks? Either way, this sounds like a reason to call some parents, not the police.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree this is pretty ridiculous but it's also sad. I wonder if there were other factors surrounding the situation, like if the kids had previously gotten in trouble-although it's hard to imagine a food fight starting all this. Also, "Scott"-jail is more expensive than detention.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is simply ridiculous. I cannot believe this happened. The fact of the matter is this would never happen at a private school or a school in the suburbs. These inner-city children are treated like criminals and disproportionately impacted with excessive discipline from the law from the time they can walk. Is it any surprise some of them actually grow up to be criminals? I've never heard of children being taken to jail because of a food fight, and this happening represents a farce on the side of law enforcement and a failure of public schools to discipline their students. I'm curious to know why the school didn't simply contact the parents or throw the kids in detention, have the public schools eroded so much that jail has become the new detention?
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