Kids plot to attack teacher

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Wed, April 2, 2008

Grade 3 kids plot to attack teacher
By AP

WAYCROSS, Ga. -- A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said yesterday.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross police Chief Tony Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school. Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs, tape her and then stab her with the knife.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages eight to 10, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges yesterday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, 'We thought they were just kidding,' " Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention centre.

Police seized a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and the paperweight from the students, Tanner said.

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages nine and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an eight-year-old boy who brought tape. He said all three students faced charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls were being charged with bringing weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokesman for the Ware County school system.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/04/02/5169841-sun.html

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Yeah - I saw that. Very disturbing...I mean on one level I guess it's just that whole pack mentality phenomena very graphically illustrated in this little microcosm of society (a third grade classroom). What makes it kind of chilling to me is the "project" aspect of it. I mean these kids had to really get together and talk about this thing together. What were they thinking as they were plotting to hurt this woman?

It makes me wonder how much they are exposed to media - in terms of stories like this - either fictionalized for tv and movies or fed to them as they sit mesmerized in front of the news everyday.

Somewhere or other they learned that when someone crosses you - you get back at them. It used to be you put a frog on the teacher's seat - now you try to kill her and clean up the mess.

I'd be scared to live with the kids who were the ringleaders. And I'd be scared about what it said about my child if he or she were one of the inductees or followers willing to go along with this, or afraid to blow the whistle on the others. How much you want to bet they told those who were hesitant to join in that they'd kill or hurt them too if they said anything to anybody?

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My first thought:
I want to see the parents!

Where do you learn, that it is acceptable to hurt someone for whatever reason?
Don't their parents ever tell them not to stand on chairs, or something else?

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Quote:

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

Special needs children can sometimes be in a whole different world. Many kids that age still don't have any real concept of death, and some kids have none (even fewer may never have any concept of it).

Seems for a town of 15,000 they have more than their share of problems ....

http://www.wjhnews.com/
http://www.wjhnews.com/filesforweb/editorials/thursday.pdf (scroll to Readers Say)

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Too much watching South Park .Cartman is not a good role model.

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That's funny - that's what my students said (or a variation of it- too much television and too many violent video games).

It was kind of funny to hear these 18-21 year old young people opining sagely "it's all these damn video games these kids watch today..." I'm constantly having to ask them to put their phones away - they play games on their phones themselves - pretty much compulsively.
I don't know if those are violent video games on those phones or not - but talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

We ended up having a very interesting discussion about it. I think my view of this whole phenomena is slowly changing- in that I used to come down pretty heavily on the side of nurture in these cases. I always used to think, "Something must have happened to that kid- some trauma, some abuse...something."
But now I'm not so sure, because the people I work with have all dealt with major trauma and abuse and I've found them to be some of the most loving, open, accepting and unwilling to hurt type of people I've ever met. It's like their abuse has made them determined not to be abusers.

No, I'm beginning to really believe that it's something more innate or organic that must be present for a child this young to have thoughts like this that will lead them to such behavior.

I'm not saying that if it's there it will inevitably be expressed. Maybe it takes a whole slew of very specific circumstances that all fall into place coincidentally to have it manifest itself, but I think this is definitely a different response to stimulus and thankfully, still pretty unique- because it is scary and twisted.

I don't believe it has anything to do with typical special needs- unless you call a mental illness a "special need"- which I guess you could - but I think it's important to make that specific delineation (unless we want to burden learning disabled people with another stigma they don't deserve.

I think it has to do with a lack of character. Something missing that will not allow this person to handle what anyone else would consider normal censure. I think the followers in the group also evidence a lack of character and strength. So maybe we're back to the video games again...it's probably hard to build character sitting in front of a screen killing all day.

I'm not sure I think that the parents had anything to do with nurturing this in any way either. Because on top of viewing this behavior - there has to be some willingness within the person to want to participate. If it's not there- the person won't be able to make him or herself want to do it.

Whatever it is that makes the person WANT to hurt someone else is what I think might organically come along with these type of people.

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Many malignant organizations have risen to great influence well before the existence of high tech toys / media.

Many individual sick-o acts have taken place well before the existence of high tech toys / media.

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Yes, exactly....and for every hundred thousand children who have been raised on those games and images, how many turn it outward toward others like this?
There has to be something else present in that person's make-up.

But it would be interesting to see if the incidence of the childhood onset mental pathology has risen in correlation to exposure to violent video games, etc. I know the incidence of childhood depression has risen exponentially in our culture - but it's hard to isolate what trigger that is in response to. I'd tend to first look at the exponential rise of adult onset depression in terms of correlation. If a child has depressed parents....what are his or her odds of having a normal, unaffected childhood?
And could watching video games have a more overriding affect than a depressed mother or father - I don't know.
It could also be the whole lifestyle change these electronics have introduced - no exercise, no fresh air, no sunlight-it depresses me just thinking about it...

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Even if you show childhood onset mental pathology rising with exposure to violent video games, etc." that in and of itself does not prove causation.

Those susceptible might well have "pulled the trigger" without violent video games etc. History speaks widely of such widespread malevolence prior to violent video games, etc.

I would put vastly more faith in the accuracy of history in being able to predict man's behavior than I would in statistical studies attempting to be predictive.

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Quote:

Chumly wrote:
Even if you show childhood onset mental pathology rising with exposure to violent video games, etc." that in and of itself does not prove causation.

Yes, I'm in total agreement.

Although...and this is just an interesting (to me, at least) thought I had - I wonder if those who are more susceptible to violent thoughts and actions to begin with are also more enamored of watching these violent images and playing those games.

And I think exposure DOES definitely have an effect on how one is able to then view violence against people with either empathy or apathy- if not outright glee.

I see it in my own children - both of whom are very gentle, much more passive personalities than me - but at the same time- I believe this also makes the much more malleable and open to suggestion.

My daughter and I were watching "Elizabeth I" (the movie with Cate Blanchett) last night. During the scenes where the protestant heretics were burned and where Norfolk was beheaded- I couldn't watch. I couldn't watch the axe come down - and she could. And she consistently does watch those scenes without even a flinch. She's not a cruel or violent person - she's very caring....I just think she's been exposed to so much more than I have - although we don't even have TV- have never had video or computer games in our home - never and I monitor what movies she watches.

I just think she's a product of her culture and time as I am of mine.
But she would never hurt anyone purposefully. She just does not have that in her- and I think some people definitely do.

That's why in the end - I think you're right. Video games cannot be the sole catalyst or cause in these situations.

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aidan wrote:

Although...and this is just an interesting (to me, at least) thought I had - I wonder if those who are more susceptible to violent thoughts and actions to begin with are also more enamored of watching these violent images and playing those games.

Given the popularity of modern media / high tech toys the level of interest of any the given group would be very hard to quantify as per causation.

However if it turned out the group you are assessing had other things in common: fast food / sedentary lifestyle / poor parentage / lower income family / poorer schooling / poorer grades, then those variables would need be to assessed within the mix as per causation.

Then, and perhaps most important you would need to be able to justify why those actions are "wrong".

This justification is nowhere as simple as it might first appear given moral relativism and the impetus of genetic predispositions to certain behaviors! After all, man is an aggressive warlike animal, and to pretend otherwise, even in peacetime, is to turn a blind eye to our true nature.

You might as well ask why we are not more aggressive more often; then to ask why any given group appears to be more aggressive as compared to some constantly changing arbitrary moral standard of "decency".

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Johanna Budwig reported a great deal of succss working with juvenile delinquents. The first order of the day, in her estimation, was to feed the children real, nourishing food. No processed food or other poisonous fare. I don't have a link. Was just recalling something from a book I read maybe ten years ago.

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Any relation to the lunch meat god Carl Buddig Laughing

Beef, chicken, turkey, pastrami, corned beef, beef sticks, snack bites, wieners, bratwurst, sausage.

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What you said sounds most reasonable.

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I edited my post, your response now makes some great humors! Pure happenstance I assure you.

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/9296/ocbvaluepackqy2.jpg

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I don't know Carl, but Johanna Budwig was instrumental in my battle against cancer.

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You're welcome to tell me more if you're inclined. It does relate to the thread in the sense that antisocial behaviors (however you want to assess them on a moral basis) may well have a dietary basis.

Outside of any moral relativism arguments, it would seem to be common sense that good health is foundational to mental health........no matter what yardstick you apply to mental health.

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Having been directed here by a troller on the ID thread I thought I might say that we all think here that Cartman is highly amusing and a first-rate Darwinist. The real thing.

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Here are some evidence photos:

::Edit::

I couldn't get the pics to post, so I'll just give the links. Confused

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/genthumb.ashx?e=15&w=240&h=180&i=/assetpool/images/0841123125_waycrossknife.jpg

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/genthumb.ashx?e=15&w=240&h=180&i=/assetpool/images/0841123137_waycrosshandcuffs.jpg

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/genthumb.ashx?e=15&w=240&h=180&i=/assetpool/images/0841123157_waycrossgloves.jpg

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/genthumb.ashx?e=15&w=240&h=180&i=/assetpool/images/0841123212_waycrossbag.jpg

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Chumly wrote:

Even if you show childhood onset mental pathology rising with exposure to violent video games, etc." that in and of itself does not prove causation.

Those susceptible might well have "pulled the trigger" without violent video games etc. History speaks widely of such widespread malevolence prior to violent video games, etc.

I would put vastly more faith in the accuracy of history in being able to predict man's behavior than I would in statistical studies attempting to be predictive.

What Chumly said is all too true; our son wrote a paper in high school English class that included some violence, and the teacher graded him on that topic, and not on his grammar. Our son graduated summa cum laude from college, and with honors for his masters. He's been a good boy all his life.

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Kids plot to attack teacher

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