Rumor of gun
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Rumor of gun
| Thu, 10-12-2006 - 10:05pm |
With the recent school shootings, we had an "incident" at dd's high school. A boy that dd knows of was expelled for supposedly bringing a gun to school. He supposedly showed it to a girl and said he was going to use it at lunch. The girl apparently went to school personnel, cops were called, he was searched. He was personally searched, his locker and belongings searched and supposedly no gun was found. Additionally, supposedly no evidence of his intentions were found. No hit list, no diary, no suicide note. Nothing. Yet he was expelled. So are rumors enough to get a person expelled or should I assume that the word that nothing was found is the rumor.
This has just been baffling me!!


Here's something from personal experience. My DS, now 18, was chatting on MSN with a girl from school and somehow they got on to the topic of how easy it was to make a bomb and that you can download all the info from the Internet. Well, she continued to chat up my son, asking him if he would ever do it, what he would use the bombs for, etc. He said, ya, he would and it would be funny to "chemically bomb" grad, not kill anyone, but make everyone sick. This girl took it for real, as probably she should have, printed the MSN chat and took it to the local police. This was last October. In late February of this year, the police called me and told me about this incident. I asked why he took so long in coming forward and he said he was trying to get a search warrant to confiscate our computer to look on the history to see if there was any bomb making sites accessed. The judge wouldnt grant him the warrant. I work for the justice department part-time and know that it doesnt take over 3 months for a search warrant especially in a case like this. Also he thought if he told me I might try to protect my son and erase any history on the computer.
Well, after I spoke to the police, I talked to my son privately who was literally shocked, at first didnt know what I was talking about. He then said he vaguely remembered a conversation like that and said he was only joking and was not serious. He had to go to the police station for an interview with them which was all recorded. In the interim, the school knew about what was going on for months and we were the last to know.
We live in a very small town and because of this my son now has a bad rap. He ended up quitting school, can't get a job anywhere in our town and we are still stared at and the subject of whispers. Apparently at grad everyone was scared he was going to bomb the facility and the police kept an eye on him all weekend. My daughter has to attend that school next year and I'm worried about her getting treated differently. What really makes me angry is that if indeed they saw him as that big of a threat they should not have waited over 3 months to bring this to our attention. As parents we shouldve been the FIRST to know AND as far as I'm concerned had a meeting with the school principal, police and my son to clear the matter up BEFORE the rumor mill started.
Yes, I think we have to be pro-active because in some cases these threats could become reality but on the otherhand when its kind of blown out of proportion, it can destroy a family like it did ours.
Just my two cents....