Girl with gun in car expelled

Here is an interesting story. Should there be leniency?

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15747016.htm

Girl with gun in car expelled

Uncle on Picayune school board

By RYAN LaFONTAINE

rlafontaine@sunherald.com

PICAYUNE - Education officials have expelled a 17-year-old girl for stashing a .38-caliber handgun in her car before driving to school, according to the girl's uncle, who sits on the school board.

Duane Wheat, a longtime member of the Picayune School Board, said his niece, a high school senior, needed just two more classes to graduate. He said she was a good student, maintained a high grade point average and was involved in many extracurricular activities.

Wheat said a fight during a weekend party in mid-August sparked a feud, which has played out on personal pages of MySpace.com and cell phone text messages. The quarrel eventually led to his niece packing a Walther pistol registered to her father and driving to school.

"There was a fight and my niece did grab a beer bottle and hit one of the girls and she got in her car and called 911," Wheat said. "She got a lot of threats."

Picayune police discovered the gun in the girl's car on Aug. 24, three weeks after the new school year had begun. She was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm on school property, according to the police report.

Students told the Sun Herald this week that Wheat's niece had posted messages on the Internet, but Wheat disputed that. He said messages were posted about his niece. Law enforcement officials are reviewing at least some of the messages.

Because of news the school board was considering allowing the girl back in school, many parents and other students have been living in fear for weeks, wondering whether the girl would return and whether tensions on campus would reach a boiling point.

Zero tolerance from me. No student has any right to arm themselves on school property, period. If she was so afraid she should have told the school or gone to the police.



Jubie

I certainly hope they don't let this girl off---There are kids who have been in trouble for carrying Midol and cough drops in school because they are "drugs".

This girl is obviously already a loose cannon--she grabs her BEER BOTTLE and hits someone with it? Sounds like she's definately one person who shouldn't be having access to a firearm, especially at a school.

Cut this one no slack, before she really harms someone. Sounds like a real loose cannon to me too. Do you care who her uncle is and on what board he sits? I sure don't.

And the gun was registered to daddy dearest:banghead: I don't care if the kids was 7 or 17, they have no business having access to a firearm.

I am from the town where this happened and she was treated no different and has been expelled. the small town rumor mill was running. this is a town that does a lot of talking. my husband works for the school so I do know this is fact
http://www.picayuneitem.com/siteSearch/apstorysection/local_story_286124939.html

Of course she should be expelled! Around here it would have been a slam dunk expulsion, rightly so, IMO.

2sisters said:

I am from the town where this happened and she was treated no different and has been expelled. the small town rumor mill was running. this is a town that does a lot of talking. my husband works for the school so I do know this is fact
http://www.picayuneitem.com/siteSearch/apstorysection/local_story_286124939.html

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This quote by the uncle in the article above is absolutely ridiculous:

<SNIP>
He said his niece had no plans of using the gun at school.

“She wasn’t planning to do anything with the gun, she only had the gun in there if this bunch had gotten after her,” Wheat said. “With the school security officers and administration, I feel the Picayune school is still probably one of the safest schools in the state of Mississippi.”
<UN-SNIP>

What?!? What was she going to do... HIT them with it?!?!? She brought it because she intended to use it if given half the chance....

I believe this girl should absolulty be expelled. She most deffinitly is a safety risk to the school and herself. As she demonstarted anger and impulse control problem with this incident using the beer bottle. Here is were I think the expolusion should come with criteria. She needs to finish her high school education. This should be done on home study or via correspondence classes. This should be mandated. She needs to attend therapy and anger manger classes this should be mandated too. I feel just kicking her out of school with no reabilitative agenda is determental to her and not in the best intrest of society. Zero tolerance for guns on school property.

mj

mjak said:

I believe this girl should absolulty be expelled. She most deffinitly is a safety risk to the school and herself. As she demonstarted anger and impulse control problem with this incident using the beer bottle. Here is were I think the expolusion should come with criteria. She needs to finish her high school education. This should be done on home study or via correspondence classes. This should be mandated. She needs to attend therapy and anger manger classes this should be mandated too. I feel just kicking her out of school with no reabilitative agenda is determental to her and not in the best intrest of society. Zero tolerance for guns on school property.

mj

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I agree with this 100%.
There needs to be some follow through on this incident and whatever the situation is needs to be defused. But she should not be able to attend classes at the school. She should be given some sort of correspondence or test out or what ever to get her diploma and thereapy ect. to try to salvage this girl.
Just because she can't go to school doesn't mean she can't harm someone else or herself if this situation isn't looked into.
Her parents need to be looked into on how easily she obtained the gun.
Messages need to go out to both parents and students that this will not be tolerated.
My son and daughter in law are teachers, these things really scare me.

MagicRose99 said:

This quote by the uncle in the article above is absolutely ridiculous:

<SNIP>
He said his niece had no plans of using the gun at school.

“She wasn’t planning to do anything with the gun, she only had the gun in there if this bunch had gotten after her,” Wheat said. “With the school security officers and administration, I feel the Picayune school is still probably one of the safest schools in the state of Mississippi.”
<UN-SNIP>

What?!? What was she going to do... HIT them with it?!?!? She brought it because she intended to use it if given half the chance....

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thats b/c he is a ridiculous person. i was upset when I heard this happend, my husband teaches at this school and it worried me. They did follow handbook though (thank god, b/c this town runs on nepotism) and she has not attended classed since it happened. Pople were upset b/c of who she was and then people just started talking. She was a very promising girl and she has ruined her life and thats a shame. If she was that threatened by these girls then she should have went to the principal or proper authorities.

I believe this is an example when we (Society) is given the opportunity to step in and change the path of a young person who is showing all the signs that may leed to the horrible school shootings we have been experiencing. This is the time to intercede by reabilitative methods so this girl gets her life on track and becomes a productive member of society and not another horrible statistic. That is why I think it is so important that she is not just expelled with no reabilitatiave measures in place. IF we just expell this kid with no recourse we have failed in our roles as adults.

mjak

2sisters said:

thats b/c he is a ridiculous person. i was upset when I heard this happend, my husband teaches at this school and it worried me. They did follow handbook though (thank god, b/c this town runs on nepotism) and she has not attended classed since it happened. Pople were upset b/c of who she was and then people just started talking. She was a very promising girl and she has ruined her life and thats a shame. If she was that threatened by these girls then she should have went to the principal or proper authorities.

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I disagree with this. Thank goodness she did not use that gun and it was found by athorities. This gives us adults the opportunity to intercede and set this girl back on a positive and succesful path. At the age of 17 she should not be written off as ruined. We can use her as an example to show other teens in trouble there is help out there and there are alternatives. She needs to continue her education not in school, get counseling, anger management, her home life needs to be examined by social services, she needs our help. If we regard her as a runied life we are reconfirming the hoplessness of so much of our youth today which sets them on the road to do horrible desperate things like school shootings. We need to turn this grils life around, not toss her out.

mjak

You are right but won't this incident follow her to college and to her next high school? I mean this really has to change the course her life was on. Ther is no way she can go back to this high school. Most of the people in Picayune want to ride her out of town on a rail. I mean people actually picketed about her at the school board meeting. I have heard that her and her family has been threatened ( I can't verify that, it is a rumor probably).

when this all started her identity was being protected b/c she was a juvenile. She was outed by the woman who lost to Duane Wheat when she ran against him in the last school board election. It would have come out eventually i am sure but this woman ran a dirty election from the start and doing that was absolutley childish. Her is the pIcayune forum about this incident if you are interested.
http://community.cnhi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/19810145/m/232108684

Keep in mind that this girl can enter any public school nationwide. Expulsion only applies to the school she was attending. Most schools will not allow teachers to have any information regarding disciplinary issues from previous schools. I've had students in my classes whom I later learned were expelled for a variety of reasons. (I usually find out when there are problems at our school.) I wish expulsion were a nation-wide expulsion. This would shake up some parents! Kids in our area just school-shop: it's a joke!

Pandora said:

Keep in mind that this girl can enter any public school nationwide. Expulsion only applies to the school she was attending. Most schools will not allow teachers to have any information regarding disciplinary issues from previous schools. I've had students in my classes whom I later learned were expelled for a variety of reasons. (I usually find out when there are problems at our school.) I wish expulsion were a nation-wide expulsion. This would shake up some parents! Kids in our area just school-shop: it's a joke!

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I was just going to post something similar about being able to attend other schools. here you usually have to leave the district. But one can return to the original school after 1 or 2 semesters.

Sometimes, if the kids choose not to fight it, they can "voluntarily " leave the school. Then they are out of the school, but there is no expulsion on their record.

2sisters said:

You are right but won't this incident follow her to college and to her next high school? I mean this really has to change the course her life was on. Ther is no way she can go back to this high school. Most of the people in Picayune want to ride her out of town on a rail. I mean people actually picketed about her at the school board meeting. I have heard that her and her family has been threatened ( I can't verify that, it is a rumor probably).

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If I was addressing your community I would tell them they have an opportunity here to make a difference in the world. Something did work right here, because this girl was found with a gun BEFORE she used it. Unlike the sad school shootings we are having all too often . We can ostrosize this girl as a worthless horrible criminal or we can use this incident to educate ourselves as to what is going wrong with our youth today that so many are turning to horrible violence. This girl needs to be held accountable for her actions. She does not belong in any school now because she clearly has anger control issues, and she broke the law by bringing tht gun to school property. She does need to stay in school though and complete her education. I would think the best way this shool be done is by correspondence school with a teacher comming to her home. She needs intensive theory and anger control therapy and of course her home life needs to be looked into. We need to look at her situation and find out what led to her feeling the need to bring a gun to school and find out what we can do so no other child feels that way. I am sure the residents of Columbine and other coummunites who have suffered the victimization of a school shooting would love to have the opportunity to be able to intercede with the students who did the shootings before hand. Your community has that opportunity, I hope they will step up to the plate and help us all learn from it and help this young girl get back on the track to a happy, healthy and productive life. I would tell the members of your community to stop wasting there valuable energy pickiting and threatening a menatally distressed teenager and refocus there engery to turning this whole situation to a postive for everyone. Just my thoughs.

mjak

mjak said:

If I was addressing your community I would tell them they have an opportunity here to make a difference in the world. Something did work right here, because this girl was found with a gun BEFORE she used it. Unlike the sad school shootings we are having all too often . We can ostrosize this girl as a worthless horrible criminal or we can use this incident to educate ourselves as to what is going wrong with our youth today that so many are turning to horrible violence. This girl needs to be held accountable for her actions. She does not belong in any school now because she clearly has anger control issues, and she broke the law by bringing tht gun to school property. She does need to stay in school though and complete her education. I would think the best way this shool be done is by correspondence school with a teacher comming to her home. She needs intensive theory and anger control therapy and of course her home life needs to be looked into. We need to look at her situation and find out what led to her feeling the need to bring a gun to school and find out what we can do so no other child feels that way. I am sure the residents of Columbine and other coummunites who have suffered the victimization of a school shooting would love to have the opportunity to be able to intercede with the students who did the shootings before hand. Your community has that opportunity, I hope they will step up to the plate and help us all learn from it and help this young girl get back on the track to a happy, healthy and productive life. I would tell the members of your community to stop wasting there valuable energy pickiting and threatening a menatally distressed teenager and refocus there engery to turning this whole situation to a postive for everyone. Just my thoughs.

mjak

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I totally agree, I remember telling someone when discussing this that she should still be allowed and education and that this shouldn't ruin her life, she should learn from it and go on to and be successful . Let me tell you that person was appalled. Seriously, read a little in the forum in the link I posted , it will explain alot.

2sisters said:

I totally agree, I remember telling someone when discussing this that she should still be allowed and education and that this shouldn't ruin her life, she should learn from it and go on to and be successful . Let me tell you that person was appalled. Seriously, read a little in the forum in the link I posted , it will explain alot.

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Okay, I went to that site and read it and see what you are talking about.
they are so busy wanting to massacure this kid that the important issues in my opinion are being ignored. Feel free to copy and paste my post that what I would say to your community to that forum . Maybe it would help. I tried to join the site but was unsuccesful.

mjak