A little kid in Ponder Texas, about 25 miles from Fort Worth, is in jail for writing an assigned horror story for Halloween. The kid got an “A” for the story but the school administration decided to toss the kid in jail for making “terroristic threats”.
doesn’t work for me either now. the web server might be getting overwhelmed. here’s the story.
PONDER, Texas Nov 01 – One day, a North Texas 7th grader got an “A” for a horror story he wrote in class. The next day, he was jailed for his creative writing. In a small town like Ponder, Texas – where the uperintendent sometimes drives the school bus – big city worries seemed far away… until last Thursday. Jan Beamon’s 7th grade son Chris was taken to jail for a horror story he
was assigned to write for class. They said it amounted to a terroristic threat. “The teacher gave him an A – a 100 – plus extra points for reading the essay aloud,” Beamon said. “I don’t understand any of it. None of it makes sense to me.”
Chris’ story included characters named after classmates and the teacher – and in the story, they all end up dead. School leaders took that to be a threat. “He’s never been arrested. He’s not a bad kid. He didn’t even break window lights out. He’s a good kid,” Jan Beamon said tearfully. Scott McKamie, who is in Beamon’s 7th grade class, said no one takes the stories seriously. “We all know
it’s not true,” he said. “We think it’s funny.” No one from Ponder ISD would talk on camera, but Superintendent Byron Welch said in a telephone interview that in this day and age, any possible threat that names an individual inside the school must be taken seriously. “A threat is a threat, and I would be upset with my child to name anyone in that,” said Teresa Chance, a parent. “Imagination can go a long way, but he doesn’t have to pick out particular people.” Parents and students told News 8 a girl in Chris Beamon’s class read her tale of terror – and she named another classmate as her stabbing victim. She is still in school. Chris Beamon remains in jail in Denton. Late Monday, his mother met with the superintendent, but reported no progress in getting her son freed. Chris Beamon spent his sixth night in jail on Monday. The next hearing to consider his release won’t happen until Wednesday, when a judge returns to town.
If airlines reacted to plane crashes like School Boards did to Columbine, it would revive the bus, train and cruis ship industry to pre-flight proportions!
What the hell? The teacher didn’t think it was a threat, his classmates didn’t think it was a threat, everybody thought it was funny. What’s the superintendent’s problem? Does he need an excuse to flex his muscles of authority or something? If these are the people running our schools, I wonder why Columbine was the exception, and not the rule.
Modest? You bet I’m modest! I am the queen of modesty!
the trouble started when the teacher asked the kid to read the story in front of the class. some kids went home that night and told their parents about the story. the wussy parents called the school and that’s when the crap hit the fan. no wonder people home school their kids
A week in jail for a seventh grade kid? Shit, if he didn’t have violent tendencies before, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had them now. If this kid goes on a rampage later on, I’m blaming the authorities 100% for doing this to him. This is just fucking unbelievable.
I wonder if that kid is going to have any faith left in the system when he gets out. . . for God’s sake, my ten-year old cousin wrote a horror story for Halloween that used the names of her classmates.
– Sylence
And now, for my next trick, I will talk in spooky half-references.
People seem to me in an over-reactive mood lately. I think it was last year when people were having shit fits about drugs in school, a kid took an Alka-Seltzer to gross out his friends by foaming at the mouth. A judge ordered him to attend a drug rehabilitation program. Now maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider an Alka-Seltzer habit to be in the same league as heroine or crack.
I don’t think those people even know what a “threat” is. If the teacher said, “Hey Billy, if you don’t look both ways before you cross the street, you’ll get hit by a car!” could the teacher be arrested for threatening vehicular assault?
I hope that Byron Welch gets arrested for something really rich one day.
NEWS FLASH -
Brain-dead school superintendent gets arrested for impersonating a school superintendent.
Byron Welch was arrested Friday for making a mockery of the educational system, willfully violating the U.S. Constitution, and dishonestly invoking child safety in an attempt to stifle creativity. His bail hearing will occur some time in the first half of the 21st Century, sources say.
Oh, fantasies.
Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.
I remember in high school ('78) taking several hundred rounds of blank ammunition to school and selling it to a classmate whose father had a gun who could shoot that type.
After classes were out for the day, we did the transaction in one of the classrooms–in a teacher’s presence. He didn’t seem to care.