DOCUMENT: Bizarre, K-12

Boy, 13, Busted For Illegal Marker Possession

Oklahoma math teacher in citizen's arrest of student

permanent marker

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Child Marker Arrest

DECEMBER 22--A 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday for using a permanent marker while in class at his Oklahoma City middle school, a violation of an obscure city ordinance.

According to an Oklahoma City Police Department report, the boy was spotted “in possession of a permanent marker” by Roosevelt Middle School teacher DeLynn Woodside. The 50-year-old educator told cop Miguel Campos that the student was “writing on a piece of paper, which caused it to bleed over onto the desk.”

Woodside, pictured at right, reported that the child, whose name was redacted by police from the report, attempted to hide the marker when she asked him for it. Strangely, Woodside’s Facebook page reveals that her “likes and interests” include the official “Sharpie Permanent Markers” page on Facebook.

Campos reported that he allowed Woodside, a seventh grade math teacher, to “sign a citation” against the boy, who was then transported to the Community Intervention Center, a juvenile holding facility. A police sergeant subsequently “booked the marker into the property room.”

A police spokesman referred to the student’s bust as a “citizen’s arrest” effectuated by Woodside.

The marker ban--which apparently is aimed at curbing graffiti--stems from a city ordinance making it illegal to possess spray paint or a permanent marker on private property (without the owner’s permission). (2 pages)

Comments (558)

Not at all. Another commenter posted the demographics and profile of the school. You do know how to use google?
You agree with calling the cops because the school is 90% hispanic? Yeah... that's not racist at all. The fact is, you are completely wrong. I was just watching a prison show on MSNBC the other day about a girl who was in prison because her mom always called the cops on her. One of the problems was lending her a credit card to spend $500 and she spent $5,000 instead. Do you know what the warden had to say? It's not their job to raise peoples kids and that they have more important things to worry about. Her mom is abusing the system and they only arrested the girl because she technically broke the law. Even the warden thought the girl shouldn't be in jail and that it's stupid her mom called the cops on her. If they don't think it's their job to control a 17 year old stealing thousands of dollars from their parents, you're really stupid if you think it's their job to help out a teacher over a marker. You are one of the most delusional people I've ever had the displeasure of associating with. You make everyone dumber.
An MSNBC fan. Why am I not surprised. Scat, you are a troll, nuisance and not worth my time..
Parents today are products of the gooberment school system themselves. Their ill parenting is not an indication of goober school's failure but of its success!!!. A long range plan of people decay to make people control easie is coming to smelly fruition. We're exactly like thse people we used to (supposedly still do) spend billions of Federal Reserve IOU notes for the purpose of aiming nuclear missiles at. Mom's here in USA dumping their infants and toddlers off in collectivist centers or daycares so that they can labor for the good of the state. Moms did the same over yonder. Did you know that government schools enabled the high divorce rate ? They shoulda never married the Sovietized wenches in the first place and shoulda sought for spritiual enlightenment through celibacy but they didn't speaking of checkout: www.celibacy.info sometime good stuff and www.savethemales.ca OH and behind this cheesy humanist gig are a small grooup of Luciferians running everything or www.radiolibertycom.
Wrong Elmer, today's parents are a product of liberal progressive policy and and a philosophy made popular in the late sixties and seventies. A mind set that thought that (amongst other things) the self esteem of our children was more important than an education. So.... we have evolved from a society where a president with only a high school diploma defeated the Japanese, to a country where college grades can't read. Though, they have very high self esteem. I direct you to the comments on this thread as evidence in support of my claim.
The people who came up with our government schools were progressives like John Dewey. You should read John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. Basically, the progressives and industrialists borrowed the Prussian modeled citizenry cooking cutting machine and foisted it on the American Public. The goal was and still is to create a mass of subserviant mediocre people. Funny that "conservatives" not only want to send their kids to thsoe progressive people molders, BUT want to empower them further with things like corporal punishment. Just look at the people we've sent to DC over the last one hundred yrs and years and that'll show beyond a a shadow of doubt that American minds have been severely warped even during the days of Church and chicken on Sunday.
The simple, undeniable fact Elmer, is that liberals have had a free hand with our educational system for the past thirty years and have succeeded in making it a disgrace. Those people who made this country great weren't bone heads. It's a pity there are so many adults today, so marginal, that they will excuse bad behavior, denigrate a dedicated educator and yak about harming the "creativity" of this generation of near illiterate boobs. We are indeed headed towards an Idiocracy.
It goes WAY beyond thirty years. Only the government schooled could have ever cast a vote for a slime bucket tyrannical crook like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A little ride through history and whatever the burnt out and government schooled brain will recall with no ryhme or reason in dates events,etc: 1968 gun control act? comes straight from 1930's liberal Progressive Nazi Germany, LITERALLY. By they way, Htler and his bull homosexual fellows in the party were all into health foods and were ANTI Tobacco (Hitler believed Tobacco was a curse by the red man to kill off the white man) Let's see, uhm friviously sending troops to the meat grinders in places like Vietnam and Korea, . Federal Income taxes, the crooked, by its very nature, Federal Fiat Reserve system (wonder what Andrew Jackson would think about his portrait being on one of their created out of thin air 20 "dollar" IOU notes?? . How did our central government elitists manage to not get lynched or at least tar and feathered for any one those things? Why, cause they created and or are complicit in the mind machine (government schools) that's why . another revealing book written by a retired Air Force General called The Harsh Truth About Public Schools is another one you should check out some time.
Elmer, I don't need to read a history book to recognize right from wrong. This woman has been described here by a fellow teacher as a good person and educator trying to function in a gang infested school, blighted by taggers and graffiti. The fact of the matter is that none of that matters in the very least to the morons here willing to vilify her and make excuses for someone who is very likely a gang member and a punk.
There are worse things than government schools. How's about Swaziland, more specifically, the sugar cane fields of Swazi. Fields where roams the creepy looking and very deadly Black Mamba snake.(PBS has a good documentary available online that'll make you grab on to your seat and fear every dark and hidden spot in the room) People have to go out and pull weeds in these fields that you can barely see two ft in front of ya. Mambas ,being the aggressive defenders of territory that they are and fond of lving in the sugar cane, are having a blast shooting venom into these low wage helpless employees. Lucky for us, the slithering evil government school critter will be easier for us to eradicate than the Mamba. People will come to my way thinkin' and go on the hunt to end the popluation's ills shortly after the economic collapse becomes too obvious to be hidden by the smiling phoney talking heads on the Boobus tube. People will start to question things taken for granted or assumed as a natural part of society and start asking questions like "Why do we need those dark age setups when books can be mass produced on the cheap and lectures can be made via internet and library video? . Why are we spending tens of millions on and polluting the environment with commerce obstructing things like school busing programs or Heating and air conditioning for large buildings? Polar Bears are dying for lack of frozen real estate thanks to government schools carbon emitting yellow tanks. Ban a School save a Bear from drowning? In hard economic times Polar Bear is good eating that sharks should be denied of.
So, which was it? Was the kid writing on a piece of paper or on the desk? 'cause the police report says both. "AR WAS WRITING ON A PIECE OF PAPER, WHICH CAUSED IT TO BLEED OVER ONTO THE DESK." "RP WITNESSED AR WRITING ON THE DESK" They can't both be right. He was either writing on the desk, or writing on a piece of paper which ended up bleeding onto the desk. One is almost understandable given the circumstances, the other is just stupid. How dare he draw on paper!
Interesting. Why is she obliged to choose one or the other but not swear to both? Is that a rule or something?
How cute, you edited your post. Anyway, Intent is why both can't be right. Was he drawing on paper or marking the desk up intentionally? If both are right, then why mention paper at all? He was tagging the desk. If the only damage to the desk was via bleeding, then the damage, while his fault, was minimal at best and not impossible to remove, something he could clean during detention. One version of the story makes the arrest almost understandable, the other makes the teacher look like a lunatic.
I find it very disappointing that in light of the vicious behavior in our schools reported virtually daily on the news, that this teacher is thrown under the bus by most commenters here while missing or avoiding the real point. This "child" might have avoided this entire episode by obeying the teacher. In a school dominated by gangs I suspect that it might be especially important that she maintain control in her classroom.
I'm glad you find the edit option cute. There are other options as well. You may find those cute also. The police report was not a dissertation on "intent", it was a report of fact as observed by the teacher. The teacher reported that she observed both. You are correct, the cover story here has distorted the information contained in the source documents to make the teacher appear to be cruel and unreasonable. A comment posted further down this thread by a coworker is highly supportive of this teacher and describes the school as 90% hispanic and infested with gangs.
Haha, oh that was worth it. I'd continue, but you're clearly not reading what I'm writing. :)
Dang! that little argument of yours just went poof! ;)
I think you'd continue but realized you can't. ;-)
If you'd actually read the police report more than skimming it for information to troll with, you'd realize that, like any good police report, it actually has both sides of the situation. One from the kid's point of view, one from the teachers. The beginning was the kid, claiming he was writing on paper, not on the desk. The second was the teacher, saying she saw the marker and witnessed him drawing on the desk itself. You use loaded phrases to try to anger posters, trying to defend their positions even when it's opinion only. ("Dang! That little argument of yours just went poof!") You repeat the same facts, even when someone has shown they're aware of the facts you're repeating. Now, to continue the actual argument for you, just this once, the teacher is clearly out of control if calling the cops was her only resort. Schools have many different systems in place, most of which are intended to cause the parents to have to punish the children as well. Detention, suspension, both viable options here. Extra work, parent-teacher conference, just a few others. Sure, the school may be "90% Hispanic and infested with gangs" but that doesn't mean the police had to be involved. Sure, we don't know the whole story, but the kid's 13 and he was drawing on a desk for cripes sake. Make him clean all the desks and go on his way. Gangs or no gangs (Middle school "infested with gangs," really?), law or no law, calling the police and filing a citation is ridiculous and unwarranted. TL;DR: The teacher could have maintained control of her classroom without the police. The fact she had to include the police proves she cannot control her classroom and should leave so a more able teacher can take her place. And there you go. Now back to your regularly scheduled trolling, courtesy of Redrover.
Dang! that little argument of yours just went poof! ;) Toodles.
I actually did read the report and found no evidence of two points a view there. Very interesting that you found such a thing. However, I will take your own remark "The second was the teacher, saying she saw the marker and witnessed him drawing on the desk itself.' and take it that you understood from the outset that this was an issue of both. The teacher and school have no authority to forced the child to do anything. Evidence of that is the child's refusal to comply with the most basic part of this issue. If you would like, you may google this sort of thing and you will find that many schools these days call in the police to deal with children. Some as young as five or six. Teachers do this these days because they can no longer count on adults to be in possession of common sense or be willing to be supportive. As to your silly jabs and insults.... I view those as evidence of a lack of confidence in yourself and the weakness and evolution of your argument. I should point out, that while you describe others as "troll", you have been treated with civility and have responded as an oaf. Perhaps you ought to review the meaning of "troll" before you use it again.
Says the one who has responded to nearly every post on this article that has anything bad to say about the teacher. Just because you can be polite and civil does not mean you are not a troll. As is evident with your other post. :)
Indeed. It would appear I am not in tune with the herd and in the minds of those inclined to group-think I must be a troll indeed. I take it you will be mooooooving on now? ;)
Oh no! My opinion just so happens to be in line with that of the majority! What ever shall I do?! No, you're a troll just like I am a troll. You attack those easy to rile up and don't stop until they stop responding. If you're not the last to reply, you're not doing your job right! So keep on trucking, troll. :)
;)
An opinion being in the majority and defended with vacuous name calling, isn't a virtue. "Most" once got all riled up over witches and reacted similarly. I took note that you resorted to the ad hominem immediately. It's a defense mechanism of the marginal thinker, not those interested in honest debate. You won't get a last word because you aren't up to it. Unless you think calling me a troll or a poopy-head cuts it in the world of grown-ups.
Definition of "Troll"(Redrover) - In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
Yeah that sounds like a few people on here, actually. I'd through Elmer up there before I would Redrover. At least Redrover seems to stay on topic... although being on topic doesn't disqualify you from trollishness, haha. Elmer has been trying to turn this discussion into something totally different than the subject at hand. Redrover has been talking about the teacher, defending her (I'm not totally against her, but I feel she exercised poor judgment and overreacted), but he has been looking to start up an argument rather than a discussion. Everyone that disapproves of what the teacher did isn't "throwing her under the bus", and the fact that the school is 90% Hispanic didn't need to be brought up in discussing if it was a bad school or not. Those two things qualify him for trollhood, haha. Thanks for the definition, Shamus. :)
LOL! The fact that the school is 90% Hispanic and gang infested was brought up on this thread by another teacher working at this school with the woman that the geniuses on this discussion are busy yakking up as a fat, disgusting Nazi. Don't suggest that there might be another side of this story unless you wish to be called a troll by these geniuses.
Very good sparky. I have consistently posted fact based comments and you just described yourself. Why don't you just call her fat again and run along.
Modern society came about by back yard tinkerers and most importantly, by minds unpolluted by the great cookie cutting machine mistakenly called public schools. A society Built by People whose plans didn't get ruined by the coffee stains on napkins or spanked out of them by status quo, or got themselves gunned down by machine gun wielding IRS who sought to tax what hadn't even been born yet.. The Wright Brothers? Homeschooled and kept free from status quo as well as : Henry Ford. Thomas Edison. Benjamin Franklin. I'll throw in Abe Lincoln too though (like most other politicians) he didn't do anything worthwhile cept expand central government power and deny the south the right of self determination. BUT maybe he coulda been a lucrative and unsubsiddized tobacco farmer if he'd been brought up in a better place. That kid may have been drawing out a vision to the home remedy for cancer- Humanity denied to big pharma's happiness. He'll grow to do stupid things like painting frescoes on organized religion's ceilings. There is HOPE yet, he may do a serious crime and get sent to do hard times and like CARBINE WILLIAMS, come up with innovations for rifles and machine guns while sitting in solitary confinement.
That is very pretty Elmer. And while we rhapsodize and fret over the self esteem of our children, they are being left further and further behind by the industrialized world because their parents are watching television and drinking wine out of a box and have forgotten how to tell the difference between right and wrong. Enjoy your lotus blossom.
It's better to scar the mind of a budding individual than to deface one of the seats of Institution, though it be long dead and smelling up the country since,well, it was forced down the throats of the American public, back yesteryear. Bet they would have kicked out Abe Lincoln and sent him to jail for carving math problems while in the act of self learning
We certainly don't want to scar his little mind. LOL!
Fifty years ago, I used to carry a pocket knife to school regularly. Although it was against the rules, it was no big deal--if caught, it would be merely taken away--perhaps to be returned after school closed for the day. The rule was intended to help prevent defacing school property which I never did--I never, never heard of a knife assault in those days--and, of course, rules could never prevent such. Now, about the Sharpie ink--it is very easily removed via rubbing alcohol--but being flammable, this too is probably banned. Sound like life in detention for this poor boy! Try homeschooling--get out of the brainwashing centers!
PS When I was a boy I too brought a knife to school and once a year we brought our rifles in and were taught gun safety and sound hunting practices. I wasn't allowed to have that knife either and there would have been hell to pay had I been caught by a teacher carving my initials into a desk. These days though, when little Johny is caught damaging his desk, the teacher catches hell. Oh...... and kids are bringing guns to school these days too. What do you think has changed?
Unfortunately, the young gentleman wasn't using a "Sharpie" which can be easily cleaned up with a little alcohol. He was arrested for marking up a desk with a permanent marker, which is banned and refusing to obey the teacher when she told him to give it up. Shame on the school.
I certainly have no love for teachers unions and tenure or mindless liberal drones but holy crap there are enough conservative drones on here to be an embarrassment. Down thread, a teacher from this very school described this place as 90% Hispanic and gang ridden and the teacher in question a well respected and good teacher. The teacher at this school also explained that tagging and graffiti are a severe problem at the school. Source documents indicate that the item was a magic marker, prohibited, the kid was marking up his desk and that she asked the kid to surrender it and he refused. He and his buds must be having a hell of a good laugh that there are actually morons out there condemning his math teacher today.
It's a dead institution long snuffed out by the secular Tree of Law.
If a thirteen year old came before me with a loaded handgun, there would be no issue as long he or she wasn't pointing at me or anybody else. Everybody should have guns and library cards too. It's America, the place was founded on gunowners, bookworms and fine tobacco. I swear the downfall to this country was when we let the lesser Eastern Europeans as well as too many Germans in country!!! Hitler, Communism, THEY LOVE that stuff and other ill collectivisms!!!
" lesser Eastern Europeans as well as too many Germans in country!!!" Ooooh. "Lesser Eastern Europeans". Yeah, you're not racist ! As for Germans, they were so populous in early America that America's official language missed being German by ONE vote. One !
Sad woman, all she's done is demonstrate to her students (who are exceptionally perceptive and influential at that age) that they can't trust her. All kids respond by hiding their own belongings when it is clear they might get in trouble for them. It would be interesting to know in what manner she approached the child for him to display a typical fear based avoidance tactic that she should have recognised. I also am a teacher and have also been fortunate to work around the globe teaching in really dangerous areas in some cases and in every single school I've worked in, the underlying lesson we always try to teach children is responsibility. It nips issues of violence, fear and absurd litigation in the bud at a very early age. That poor boy will probably never put his trust in a teacher again.
True enough. Goodness me, I too would like to know in what manner she approached the young tagger that caused him to display "typical fear based avoidance tactics". Perhaps she should have stroked his hair and said "pretty please with a cherry on top?". I'm sure you are an expert in making gang ridden classrooms just adore you. No doubt you all held hands and sang koombaya before the end of every period. However, back in the day, had the little thug tried to hide contraband the teacher would have jerked him out of his shoes and sent him to the principals office where he'd get a foot up his ass or a paddle across it. Then he'd be sent home to parents that wouldn't have asked him if the teacher offered him daisies in exchange for the marker and would have laid into him until he had a limp. But alas, back in those days we were barbaric and didn't have kids shooting up classrooms or raping teachers or destroying the walls of our schools with markers and spray paint.
The real crime is that people were forced by the point of a gun to pay for the desks in that government school building in the first place. What does God think about the situation? Whose heart does he find guilt or any darkness in?..... OH, Wait! they threw God out years ago! So flip a coin folks and decide for yourselves the greater or lesser of evils between a petty rule and a 13 year old rule breaker. It's always good to see the face of evil and tyranny get it exposed in these kinds of stories. The only good government school building is an abandoned building or one being rennovated for productive use by private free enterprising individuals in the pursuit of profit and personal gain. and let us not forget the wisdom of Mark Twain: "NEVER LET SCHOOLING INTERFER WITH YOUR EDUCATION"
Police State, plain and simple. Western democratic culture has mutated and corrupted to the point where people can be arrested, detained and convicted for everything from nominal offenses of city codes to possession of everyday items. No longer are we held responsible for our own, personal behavior. We are now considered guilty for having a magic marker because someone else might use it for graffiti. If the above story is accurate, I am truly ashamed for my country and for what it is becoming. But on the upside, there is one advantage to age: I won't live long enough to see just how bad it will eventually get. If this is your kind of America, you are welcomed to it.
Our new laws base everything on "intent", what did the person intend to do? If they have a marker they intended to commit a crime. Hate crimes are based on what someone else believes is the intent. Look at Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago mayor's race. He can circumvent the residency laws because the judge feels he didn't intend to leave the city. Crimes are no longer based on evidence or facts but what authority feels the intent of the acts are. With that everyone becomes guilty of something.
True. School districts learned from experience that when thirteen year old's brought magic markers to school they usually "intended" to mark up stuff. Like walls and desks etc. The theory was, if you ban those thing perhaps the little angels might not destroy quite so much property. As it turns out, this kid was caught marking up his desk, perhaps they were correct and as it turns out, it's a good law.
I couldn't have said it better.
I am also a teacher at this school. I also agree that what happened should NOT have happened in that manner. I would have (as I have done many times before) just taken the marker and called the parents. But, we have NO IDEA what happened before the incident. The 7th graders at our school are a rough bunch. This teacher is not an idiot. She is not someone I hang around with or even call a friend, but she is a really, really good teacher. Her test scores are ALWAYS high and the kids learn a lot in her class. We spend a lot of money each week repainting the bathrooms and sanding (or whatever they do) the sides of the building from tagging. Our furniture is old and outdated so we try our best to make it look good and clean for our students. Maybe this was an overreaction, but you all have no idea what we go through in a typical day. Did you know that most of our classes have OVER 35 students in them? We teach 5 sections of our subjects so that's around 170 or so students we see in a day. Our school is 90% hispanic, 100% free lunch, and we have every kind of gang there is. I think our students are wonderful kids. They really are. But, right or wrong, home is not where they learn rules. We teachers are their mothers, fathers, counselors, security blankets. I am not saying it's the way it should be, but it's the way it is. So, maybe just lay off....just a little.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with you. You are not the parents, and it is not the way it is. It is what has become acceptable. Out children are not government property. Now I know what you're going to say. Parents are too busy, or they don't care. Well I have never been too busy and I do care. Schools are now teaching values, morals, sex ed. It's all become indoctrination into socialism. You do it because you are told to do it. When my granddaughter brought home the book the Diary of Ann Frank and the school turned it into a sociology lesson about how people have to learn to live together and get along that was it for me. We cannot teach our children to not have sex and then hand them a condom. This experiment has gone too far. If you want children to respect authority you don't prosecute them for ridiculous rules reasons. They are not being taught anything other than to bow down to the authority figure no matter how stupid or unjust it is. Schools need to go back the the three R's. Again this is why my child is being homeschooled