13 yr old Boy Accused Of Assault With Rubber Band

[The Straight Story]

Boy Accused Of Assault With Rubber Band
13-Year-Old Suspended 10 Days

POSTED: 5:39 pm EST February 22, 2005
UPDATED: 6:51 pm EST February 22, 2005

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a Local 6 News report.

Robert Gomez, a seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School, said he picked up a rubber band at school and slipped it on his wrist.

Gomez said when his science teacher demanded the rubber band, the student said he tossed it on her desk.

After the incident, Gomez received a 10-day suspension for threatening his teacher with what administrators say was a weapon, Local 6 News reported.


http://www.local6.com/news/4222002/detail.html

[Betsy Ross]

1. Sounds like a case for homeland security to me. (end sarcasm) n/t

[Sanity Claws]

2. Is this really the whole story?

If it is, the world is crazy. Are we now going to be searched for rubber bands at the airport because rubber bands are weapons?

[Kingshakabobo]

3. So, what does a sling-shot get ya? GITMO? n/t

[Tux]

4. Tossed it?!

Didn't he relaize that he could have killed everyone in that town? It's a WMD. That town needs to be liberated and now. Oh the humanity!

[latteromden]

5. Yes, because a rubber band is as bad as a bomb threat.

:wtf:

[dsc]

6. There are two sides to every story

I wonder just what tossed means here. If he shot a rubber band at that teacher out of anger he should be out for 10 days.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Another story where we hear from the angry parent

but not the school. I am really getting tired of these stories.

But here is my .02: If the kid is being considered for expulsion, something tells me he is a 'problem child'. I know schools are suspending kids for ridiculous things these days, but expulsion is another step entirely. This just can't be this little cherub's first offense if they are thinking of expelling him.

I had a parent come up to school one day enraged because I had thrown her child's toy in the trash. She went in the principal's office and pitched a major fit. The principal asked what toy I had thrown away and the mom said it was an airplane. District policy was to confiscate toys and hold them until the parent came to get them and the parent wanted to know why I had not just kept the toy instead of throwing it in the trash.

Here's the part the kid had not told his mom: It was a paper airplane!!

It's nice to have both sides of a story before jumping to conclusions, isn't it :)

[dsc]

14. Yeah

We had a case like this in Cleveland a few years ago. This kid and his parents whinned to the media about being banned from sitting in the cafeteria. It turns out this kid had repeatedly broken seats in the cafeteria and bullied the other kids (he was much bigger than they were). The press bought it hook line and sinker.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. We suspended a kid for bringing nail clippers one time.

He told the kids on the bus he had a knife, (the clippers had a sharp point on the nail file part) and he said he was going to stab his teacher. But he got suspended for the clippers because we can't act on threats an adult doesn't hear. The kid of course denied making the threat and since he was a bully, the principal didn't want him coming after the kids who told on him.

[Catherine Vincent]

18. LOL! Now that's funny.

Thanks for sharing.:-)

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. The awful part to that story

is that the mom became so enraged she threatened me and the principal, we had to call security and she ended up being banned from coming back in the school building. Then as she left, she backed her car into a teacher's car and of course mom had no insurance.

She was a major nutcase. One of our other moms worked at the neighborhood video store and she said this woman had been banned from coming back there for pitching a fit when she had to pay a late charge.

Makes you wonder how well she handled real problems in her life. :scared:

[elehhhhna]

38. Only if it was a bout 80 lbs and steel-reinforced. Please.

Overkill punishment.

Hallmark of Republicans.

[dsc]

44. Try teaching for awhile

Many of us are sick of the day by day disrespect that is personified by acts like that kid did.

[bloom]

7. At first I laughed - but it's depressing really.

sheesh.

[Kadie]

8. People sure are on edge aren't they

If a rubber band being tossed on a desk is a weapon then we seem to have some serious problems.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Democrat Dragon]

10. At least this isn't as ridiculous as the incident where

a kid got expelled for pointing a chicken drumstick at a teacher and yelled "bang!" or the inciedent where a girl got in trouble for describing a violent nightmare she had in school. When I was in fifth grade, a boy almost in my class almost got in trouble for DRAWING a gun.

[bloom]

11. I think it's just as ridiculous... eom

[readmoreoften]

12. they should do a background check on this kid

make sure he isn't a homosexual abortionist antiwar terrorist

[porphyrian]

15. It could've put somebody's eye out!

Too bad he missed.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Sorry but I don't find that very funny

You would be amazed at the 'weapons' kids can make at school. I saw a first grader stab another kid with a pencil so badIy we had to call 911 and he was in surgery 15 minutes later to have the pencil removed. I don't even keep paper clips out where my kids can get to them; they bend them and poke them at each other. And rubber bands are hidden way back in my bottom desk drawer. I ALWAYS confiscate them from the kids. I have never written a kid up and sent him to the office for having a rubber band, but if he used it as a weapon, you can bet your ass he'd be in deep doo doo.

[porphyrian]

40. You're exactly who I was mocking.

Of course you don't think it was funny.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. So why do you feel the need to mock me?

I have spent 25 years teaching kids and my experience tells me that I doubt we are hearing the whole story. But if you want to believe this little darling was suspended for merely dropping a rubber band on his teacher's desk, then go right ahead.

[porphyrian]

43. Because you didn't think my remark was funny.

So, I dedicate it to you, believer in rubber band assault conspiracy theories.

[proud2BlibKansan]

46. It doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist

if I believe there is more to this story than what we have been told.

I work in a school. Do you?

I related a couple stories in this thread already of seemingly innocent kids who weren't all that angelic. It's easy to take one aspect of a story and blow it out of proportion. Kids do it all the time, especially the trouble makers. And they often have angry parents who love to run to the media with only a few of the details.

There was a story in our local news recently about a kid who was suspended for bringing a toy gun to school. He had found it at the bus stop and turned it in to the principal when he got to school. His mother was a typical angry parent on the news and made the principal look like an ogre for suspending her little cherub, who was only trying to do the right thing. But what the local press didn't tell us is that the kid had pointed the gun at other kids on the bus, told them it was real and claimed he was going to use it to hurt someone at school that day. The news media also didn't report that the kid had received an inschool suspension which is quite different from being sent home.

But if you want to trust the media to tell you the whole story, go right ahead. Because I work in a school, I feel pretty certain that we haven't heard all the details of this rubber band story. It certainly wouldn't be the first time the media has twisted a story, now would it?

[porphyrian]

47. That's nice. - n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

17. How did he toss it?

You know, even if he did pop her, 10 days suspension is too harsh, imo.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. That really depends

on whether this kid had a history of violence. If he had been in trouble for fighting or for threatening teachers or even for disrupting classes, then shooting a rubber band could very well get him a 10 day suspension. The fact that they told the mom he was being considered for expulsion tells me he isn't an angel who has never broken any rules at school.

[retnavyliberal]

27. There is alot we don't know about this but

lets assume he "shot" it up to her desk being a smart a$$. How about respect for authority? Do you want your child learning it is OK to disrespect adults? Another poster said, and I agree, we are not likely talking about the class president here.

[Catherine Vincent]

28. I agree but what happened to three day suspensions?

[retnavyliberal]

30. I agree as well, however, again we don't know

how many, if any, of those this student had received. I will say, if I had done this at school when I was a kid, I would need the 10 days to recover from my dad :-)

[noiretextatique]

41. how do you (or anyone else) know what this kid is like?

maybe he is the class president, or maybe he's just an average kid who hasn't been in any trouble. it's as unfair to speculate about the kid's personality as it is to assume the teacher overreacted.

[Fleshdancer]

21. what the hell is wrong with Florida???

OK Floridians, your state has to be pretty f*cked up for a Texan to stop and ask "what the hell is wrong with Florida?" First I read about all police tasing kids down there, now a student gets a 10 day suspension for a rubber band? Do you just REALLY fear kids or something???

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll get back to the hideous problems in my state...Goddess knows there are many.

[bleedingheart]

23. my son gets stabbed in the chest with a pencil and I am not

even sure what the punishment for the stabber is yet....

yet this kid gets 10 days for possibly shooting a rubber band???

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Press charges

against the kid who stabbed your son. That works. The cops and prosecutors don't dilly dally around trying to decide what to do.

[elehhhhna]

37. Yep. The you'lll find out if it was an accident or whatever...

The school's probably covering its own butt, but an investigation tends to get people talking.

[Rex]

24. Raise the threat level to purple-gray!

When you make demands - you get hit with rubberbands! It was just a fraternity prank!

[Endangered Specie]

25. I knew someone who got suspended for 5 days...

for 'threatining' a teacher with a hat, he "took it off in a threatening manner", even though the teach told him to take it off.

So, sad as this may sound, Im not all that suprised.

[Massacure]

26. 10 days suspensions??? Jee Wiz.

When I was in sixth grade, five years ago, someone bent a paper clip into a little S shape and shot it at a teacher. He got detentions for a week.

Paper clips hurt a hell of a lot more than plain old rubber bands too.
Things have changed in the last few years. I'm 16 and my grandpa lectures me on how much things have changed. Things like this make it hard to imagine!

[donheld]

31. Let him/her that is with out sin shoot the first rubberband

This country is going/gone totally bonkers. I guess these are now weapons.

[GiovanniC]

34. Truly, These Are Weapons of a Dangerous Insurgency

[OneBlueSky]

32. I don't care how he tossed it, slung it, zapped it, or shot it . . .

suspending someone for a rubber band is absurd . . . kids have been shooting rubber bands at each other since their invention . . . what in the hell are these people thinking? . . .

[GiovanniC]

35. MOAB (Mother of All Bands)

Truly a weapon of mass destruction.

[Ms_Mary]

33. Did he flip it at her?

[bdot]

36. I'm glad they didn't expel people like that when I was in middle school.

We used to shoot rubber bands at bus drivers, teachers, and anyone else. They usually either dodged out of the way or asked us to stop shooting at them.

[SmokingJacket]

39. Yet another in the long line of "Our schools are broken" stories.

Maybe the teacher was out of line, I don't know. But doesn't the local news have real stories to cover? Seems like they pounce on anything that shows how bad public schools are.

[gollygee]

45. I have no doubt he shot the rubber band at her

And that isn't acceptable. It is the kind of thing a kid should get detention for though, not a 10-day suspension.