A Florida sheriff’s novel approach to countering school shooting threats by exposing online the identities of children who make them is drawing ire from juvenile justice advocates as well as others who say the tactic is counterproductive and morally wrong.
Michael Chitwood, sheriff of Volusia county, raised eyebrows recently by posting to his Facebook page the name and mugshot of an 11-year-old boy accused of calling in a threat to a local middle school. He followed up with a video clip of the minor’s “perp walk” into jail in shackles.
Chitwood, who has said he is “fed up” with the disruption to schools caused by the hoaxes, has promised to publicly identify any student who makes such a threat. On Wednesday, another video appeared onlineshowing two youths, aged 16 and 17, in handcuffs being led into separate cells, with the sheriff calling them “knuckleheads”.
You’re not going to publicly humiliate any potential school shooters into not doing so. You might, forever, get innocent kids harassed and harmed.
Kids say things. They’re in the school 180 days a year and their companions are 25 11-year-olds who are likely to report them for it, legit or not.
Trying to target these kids with stochastic terrorism and bullying isn’t the solution. Though I know cops love to bully.
I just had this nightmare a couple days ago. I was in a convenience store joking around and somehow it slipped out “this is a robbery” and everyone panicked. Sometimes it’s even just your mouth outrunning your brain, even in dreamland
You will stop most the fake threats though, which seems to be the intent.
You’ll hide them, maybe. The threats aren’t the big problem here.
That is true, but they are a problem, and one far more frequent and increasing. I’m not saying I agree with the method here, but it’s specifically targeting “knuckleheads,” which I take to mean (largely) young males that think it’s funny or gets them out of tests or whatever at the cost of often scaring a large amount of other young people, school employees, and parents.
I’m thankful that Canada has laws protecting minors from this sort of thing. Something needs to be done about that problem, but this is not it.
We have laws like that in America too. That guy’s just a dick.
Sheriff is above the law
I’m going to vote for bad idea on this one too. Teenagers make emotional decisions, and I only see this encouraging kids to make bad decisions to receive attention.
Interesting article: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051
In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.
Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part.
Hmm, must’ve forgotten to include some republicans in the study
I can see both sides of this argument and honestly I lean toward allowing this shaming to continue. At least this sheriff is trying something other than tots and pears.
Yeah as much as I think we should be aware of the dangers that these kinds of threats pose, putting this kid up online is like a “dangerous: stay away” sign, and that’ll only further alienate an already troubled kid.
The USA continually surprises me with more creative ways to approach the problem with anything but “remove access to guns”.
“He doesn’t need to parade this kid, this 11-year-old child, in front of a camera to achieve his purpose. Just do traditional things – arresting, charging – that don’t add this layer of shaming, embarrassing, humiliating and traumatizing.”
And whats your solution? This isn’t like… throwing a rock through a window or graffiti tagging a wall. Consequences need to be swift, decisive, and ensure no one gets any ideas to copycat them.
What about the kids who are wrongfully accused, since all that’s required here is someone reporting that you made a threat? Seems like a new avenue for bullies to exploit.
They can enjoy possibly multiple large piles of money off lawsuits. Unlikely in the case noted in the article though-
In the video, which had more than 270,000 views on Facebook as of Monday afternoon, the camera pans across a conference table covered in airsoft guns, pistols, fake ammunition, knives and swords that law enforcement officers claim the boy was “showing off” to other students.
As if filing and winning a lawsuit is that easy or obtainable, not to mention this is after the damage is done and some innocent kid is completely ostracized from the community.
The kid was showing this stuff off so that means they were going to shoot a school up? This could easily describe some weeb who was trying to look cool and then had kids call him a school shooter. In my K-12 days 20+ years ago, the weird kids were constantly joked about as being potential school shooters. It only takes one person misinterpreting/hearing these jokes to ruin someone’s life.
As if lawyers won’t line up for the payday? C’mon now.
Also, in the current day and age, kids aren’t randomly showing off their weapon collections that include knives and swords, because, obviously, the whole school shooter thing exists.
Lastly, what solution do you think is viable? I don’t think a situation like this
[Chitwood’s] department dealt with 54 threats in a 12-hour period following the killings of two students and two teachers at Apalachee high school.
Is tenable. Do you?
Maybe lawyers would line up to bring a suit but you’re still looking at a multi year case and potentially having to move to a new city and switch schools in the meantime. What does parading children in front of cameras solve when these kids are still considered innocent in the eyes of the law? Do you think someone legitimately planning an attack is going to be swayed by the possibility of being on TV or having their picture posted online and not the prison/death sentence that comes with an actual attack?
A viable solution is to pass laws that make it so guns aren’t so plentiful and easy to obtain along with making it easier and cheaper to obtain mental healthcare, but that’ll never happen. Everything else will just be a poorly thought-out bandaid that doesn’t solve the root of the issue.
A viable solution … that’ll never happen.
So not viable. Okay.
So because the proper solution is unlikely to happen, that makes any other ham-fisted approach a good idea? That’s not really how things work.
Maybe keeping the kids privacy will:
- deprive a potential shooter of their publicity
- let an innocent accused resume their lives
- allow someone in a crisis more opportunity to get treatment/recover without making it worse
What does this humiliation do?
- let the sheriff enact spiteful revenge against someone not convicted
- ruin the life of an accused innocent
- force someone in a crisis into a more desperate state
- help a perpetrator achieve notoriety
deprive a potential shooter of their publicity
Remove a potential shooter from the field you mean?
let an innocent accused resume their lives
Or let potential shooters know they aren’t being ignored until they start blasting.
allow someone in a crisis more opportunity to get treatment/recover without making it worse
Jail can also provide treatment, without the possibility of them snapping and murdering people. Seems reasonable to me.
let the sheriff enact spiteful revenge against someone not convicted
Identifying threats to society is “spiteful revenge” Do you think we should have referred to him as O.B.L. instead of Osama Bin Laden because he wasn’t convicted yet to keep his anonymity? That it was “spiteful revenge” to let folks know who he was? Cmon now.
ruin the life of an accused innocent
or stop a copycat killer.
force someone in a crisis into a more desperate state
who will be locked up and thus unable to act on those urges.
help a perpetrator achieve notoriety
Least sensible of the lot. They’ll be notorious for making threats and going to jail. Much preferrable to murder and jail.
This is a kid who’s been accused. There’s been no trial, no evidence, no conviction. He’s not been proven guilty of anything.
It’s a kid. Everywhere else kids have privacy by default. Publicizing the name of this kid is not justice nor any part of justice.
Even if he did it, we have no idea whether it was serious - calling a kid such a criminal before he’s convicted dies nothing prevent any crime
Even if he did it, we have no idea whether it was serious
So we shouldn’t take threats of shootings or bomb threats seriously now?
Wow. Just… wow.
You’re losing the plot here. The question is whether it’s ok to publicly post the identities of kids accused of a specific crime
Its a point you brought up and it warrants addressing.
It’s the title of this thread
Have to say I agree. This seems like a good deterrent. Not sure of the legality of it, but then “legality” is open to interpretation lately in the US.
I’m shocked it was not Grady Judd (the sheriff). He is a piece of work.
The correct word is shit
