As Glenn Reynolds puts it so often, putting your kids into the public school system is tantamount to child abuse. Read this horrorshow:
The cops had the apartment building manager knock on the family’s door. Jade answered and the cops told her she shouldn’t be home alone. Jade started crying and asked to call her dad, McMurry says. But the cops wouldn’t allow it. They did allow her to change into warmer clothes, since they were going to take her away for an interrogation.
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When McMurry returned from Kuwait, she faced two felony charges of child abandonment. She turned herself in and spent 19 hours in jail before being released on bail.
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Long story short, almost a year later—she was suspended without pay the entire time— McMurry’s case came to trial. Brunner claimed to be on a prearranged vacation. McMurry, eager to get the case heard, allowed the trial to proceed without him.
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The trial took four days. The jury deliberated for five minutes and found McMurry not guilty.
Unlike many stories of this type, this one ends well: the mother is suing the shit out of the Stasi cops, and a judge has denied them “qualified immunity” (whereby cops can do whatever the fuck they want without fear of penalty).
But read the whole thing, keeping all guns out of reach.
The kid was 14, which used to be marrying age. When I was 14, I worked double shifts (7 AM to 11 PM) at an ice cream parlor, did the night’s books, and then dropped the bank deposit off on my walk home.
When I was 9, my mother would give me a dollar bill to ride my bicycle to the corner store and get milk and bread (and change – that was a long time ago!). My best friend was mowing lawns and saving half for a better bike and half for medical school – and he must have started that when he was 8.
The read is a good one.
It was amazing that the jury took 5min to decide (Unanimously …) in the Mom’s favor. The sad part is she suffered for a year, lost wages, suspended, and a tarnished rep.
But, she gets reply, and I hope it nets the whole lot – the officers, supervisors, organizations, ect, that needs set as an example that overreach, at any level, needs hammered down like a nail.
I hope the parents win and get a huge payout from the town and the resource officers. Most states require that a juvenile have a parent/guardian or an advocate with them for any questioning.
JQ
Unfortunately, any compensation to the parents will likely come from,
surprise, the taxpayers ( the union or some other ‘group’ ) and this is why
it is so frustrating.
Even if you win, there is rarely, VERY rarely, ANY sort of ‘punishment for the
real offender !
The bad news is that ALL of them KNOW this and hide behind their ‘protection’.
Sue the INDIVIDUALS on an INDIVIDUAL basis, if that is even possible .
Bankrupt THEM with legal fee, loss of income, tarnished reputations etc. etc.
I used to have a great deal of respect for law enforcement officers but no longer.
The job attracts bullies by its very nature. The ‘we put our lives on the line
every day’ has been wrung dry – so do iron workers, truck drivers, or any job where you
can get killed just doing your job !
Yeah. I’m kind of in the same boat as you.
Not just Police Officers, ANY .gov agency that has regulatory and enforcement power, is the pile of shit that attracts bullies, well, like flies. No individual actor (if they’re even held accountable) will ever feel a pinch because of the vast bureaucracies backing them.
I understand why Qualified Immunity was a thing, like Eminent Domain. But like Eminent Domain, it needs to be drastically re-thought and re-worked.
And those two “School Resource Officers” are on their own as their “Qualified Immunity Plea” was denied by the court.
Any judgments against them will probably still be paid by the taxpayers, under the union contract. What’s needed is to get a big enough judgment that the city officials will have to either cut back services noticeably or raise taxes – and explain to their constituency why they,
1) Signed that contract, and
2) Failed to supervise and train the cops to know and follow the law.
They ought to be kicked out by the voters at the next election, but what do you want to bet that the news media won’t even remember this issue by that time?
But there’s someone else being forgotten here: the prosecutor that pursued that case. The courts have given prosecutors _absolute_ immunity, but I hope someone is passing around petitions for a recall election for the chief prosecutor, and pestering the bar association about disbarring him and the person he sent into the courtroom with a case so poorly founded in the law.
Kaltenbrunner and Bormann?