Two schoolboys arrested for "plotting" school shooting, probably should NOT have been arrested

Discussion in 'Law & Justice' started by kazenatsu, Sep 15, 2021.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In the news there's a story about two school boys who were arrested for supposedly "plotting" to carry out a school shooting.

    I am aware many of you in this forum are Left-leaning, so you all probably don't see the slightest thing unusual about the law enforcement response to this.

    But in my opinion (and I would say the opinion of many other more Libertarian-leaning members and those on the conservative Right), the arrest of those two boys was wrong. Not just wrong, but outrageous. This is part of a wider phenomena of school officials and law enforcement being excessively paranoid about any possibility of a school shooting, and students falling under suspicion.


    Police arrested 13-year-old Connor Pruett and 14-year-old Phillip Byrd after investigators discovered that the two were plotting to execute a mass killing at Harns Marsh Middle School in Lehigh Acres, Florida.
    Phillip's mother, Carrie Tuller, appeared in court on Sunday, where she defended her son.
    "He's just a little boy," she said. "He didn't think this was really serious. He didn't think they were serious."
    https://www.theblaze.com/news/florida-boys-arrested-plotting-columbine-style-shooting-attack


    There are some big civil liberties issues with this. Civil liberties meaning INDIVIDUAL rights. (I know, something many on the Left don't seem to have a strong concept of) I think the type of evidence that was cited has some issues with it, and the evidence is weak.

    Very likely they were just kids playing around and talking about doing something like that but who were not serious about doing it.

    But school officials and law enforcement are paranoid these days. The kids are probably just innocent and being subjected to this because the authorities are paranoid and fearful. Individual rights are getting thrown out the window.

    No one sees the problem here? Notice the idea "having weapons = going to commit an attack".
    It doesn't take too much thought to see the comparison that could be made to gun owners here.

    I'd like to know what type of gun it was. If the guns did not belong to someone else in the family and the parents did not know about it.

    If it was a handgun, maybe we could understand the concern. Not normal for a child that age to have one.
    If the gun in question was simply a single-shot rifle, then it is totally outrageous that the children were arrested.


    Here's a transcript from a CNN video interviewing the sheriff that was on this case:

    "Joining me now is the sheriff of Lee County, Florida, Carmine Marceno. How far along were the boys in this alleged plot and how were they caught?"
    "This is a horrible story actually and I'll tell you, when you put all the pieces together, which is what we've done here, we prevented a mass shooting, there's no doubt in my mind. Most importantly, the student that comes forward, the teacher that comes forward, you know, people see it, say it, they make the call... We don't ignore red flags. And that's most important here because if not, I could be sitting here talking about a mass shooting. "So again, how far along were they?"
    "Well, the plan had... ah... the plan was in place... They were surfing the black market for guns, they were surfing the internet. They were sensationalized by Columbine - they were inspired - okay... They were all over - the maps of the school, they had maps of exactly where our security cameras were, they knew exactly what they needed to do, and what they wanted to do."
    "And how was it that they were caught ultimately?"
    "So the student comes forward, talks to the teacher, the teacher calls the school resource officer, says listen, I think there's a gun in a backpack here. Immediately, our SRO [school resource officer] goes into action, takes that backpack and looks for that gun - nothing. Now, he could have stopped there, but guess what? But guess what? We don't. We start talking and interviewing multiple students and one witness says, you know, at lunch, both our suspects were talking about shooting up this whole school. So now we pull the other suspect in and now we find a map. And from there we begin our investigation. Now what does that mean to us? It means we leave no stone unturned. Our real time information center goes into action - We then work, we take search warrants on both houses, and inside the houses, we find guns - we find the gun - we find knives, we find ammo, it all unfolds right in front of our eyesOne of the boys mothers said in court yesterday that her son is just a little boy, and that she didn't think the plans were serious. What do you say to that?Well, my... it's very simple. Is he a child? Yes he is. But when a child, I don't care what age, 13, 14, 15, presses the trigger on a gun, the aftermath is the same. And you know what, unfortunately parents have to be parents, okay... When your child is surfing the web, the net, online, and you go in and you got to see what they're searching, right? And now you see that your child's been watching Colombine shooting narratives, you know, 12, 15 times - and they're inspired by it... They're trying to buy guns online, on the black market, trying to recruit other students and people to help them with their mission, okay... Parents need to be parents... And don't ignore red flags..."​

    A tip from a Florida student led to a chilling discovery, CNN video, September 14, 2021


    The sheriff sounded really bumbling in that video. You can read between the lines, and what the sheriff doesn't say is just as revealing as what he does.

    This just confirms to me that they didn't really have any strong evidence. Yeah, sure, it's fine if you want to say that what the boys did was suspicious, but I think it was wrong to arrest them.


    Apparently the law enforcement even misrepresented the supposed "gun" they found.
    The parents claim it was a BB gun.
    https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending...g-plot-defend-son/E2K4676I5FFAFPLLONYSFJBFHQ/

    A search of Tuller's home turned up a gun and multiple knives, authorities said. Christopher Tuller insisted his son is not dangerous.
    "The rifle they took out of here, it wasn’t a rifle. It was a BB gun," Christopher Tuller told NewsNationNow.com.​

    Just an excuse to try to come up with enough reason to have the boys arrested.


    related thread: overreaction and tough response to school shooting threats
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2021
  2. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    so you want the police to just ignore threats like this?
     
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Should we sacrifice individual liberties in the name of "safety"?

    Was it right to have those boys arrested?

    It seems to me, this type of response will create an environment of fear in schools.

    I think everything those boys did, they should have had the right to do.

    The evidence that any "plot" actually existed was flimsy at best.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2021
  4. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    if Muslims were talking about blowing up the plane on their flight, would you want the police to take it seriously

    same is true of a student talking about a mass shooting at their school

    even if it was just talk, both have to be taken seriously
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2021
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm going on record here to say that...

    Fing YES!!

    I'm MORE than willing to sacrifice the freedom of those who are plotting murder.

    Since when was plotting high crimes OK with you???
     
  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The point of my post is that they were NOT "plotting murder".

    The evidence that there was any plot to murder is extremely weak and flimsy.

    And how exactly do you think "plotting" should be defined? That could have much to do with how you view this.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2021
  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    We have standards for ALL of that, followed by our judicial system from the SCOTUS to the cop on the beat.

    There are abuses. But, that is a different issue.
     
  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That sounds like a total cop-out. You are mentally abrogating the issue off to someone else, basically saying "I trust the system to figure it out".
     
  9. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    We DO trust the system to figure it out!

    Of course the system is a large collection of humans, so it is by no means perfect. None of our systems is perfect.

    So, we work to correct abuses when we find them.

    Sometimes that's REALLY hard, as we have a high degree of acceptance of police shooting and otherwise abusing the rights of non-whites they encounter.
     
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's why it's important to analyze issues like the one in this story. To see the type of ways that the laws and system can react to a certain type of situation.
    What happened in this story is extremely questionable. The response of the law to the circumstances of this case is certainly not an obvious one.
    We should ask ourselves whether the arrest of these boys was really an appropriate response, and if not, how the laws or system could be modified to try to prevent this type of error from happening again.
    Otherwise, we are just not fixing the problem. Or, at the least, we would be ignoring complex implications of the law; how the law ends up getting implemented and what exactly it means in actual practice. I guess that's too complicated for many people and their brains just glaze over, when they read a story like this.
     
  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I want those boys and anyone else who plots a murder to be arrested.

    It could be found that they should not be released back into the same environment without serious supervision or other appropriate remedial action.
     
  12. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then maybe you did not read the story very carefully, or actually truly understand.

    I want the judge the face disciplinary action. It should also go down in the sheriff's personal record that he misrepresented the gun that was found in the home as being a real gun. Although even with that misconduct it still should not have constituted enough evidence to order an arrest.
     
    Jarlaxle likes this.
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I don't see this issue as even remotely rising to the level of national concern.

    Today there is a pattern of police racial abuse that permeates all states. And, that is not just causing unjustified arrests. It includes police beating people to death, shooting them in the back, etc.

    How about redirecting your oh so deep concern for justice to cases that are LETHAL and are NOT within a country mile of justice?
     

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