Girl, 9, Facing Four Felonies For Wild School Bus Tantrum, Battering Sheriff's Deputy

[chaya]

A nine-year-old Florida girl is facing four felony charges after she allegedly threw a tantrum yesterday on a school bus, spit on the driver, threw rocks at the bus, and tossed a patio chair at a cop, who she warned, “I will fuckin kill you!”The child, a fourth grader at the Royal Palm School in Fort Myers, was traveling home when the driver told

Comments

[mollywobbles867]

WAT.

[riath]

How do you charge a nine year old with felonies? What's the age of criminal responsibility in Florida anyway?

[chaya]

Idk, but I hope this is all thrown out as soon as it hits court. I can understand a bus driver maybe not thinking it through and pressing charges, but I don't give anybody else involved int his any such excuse.

[lickety_split]

I think it's the "assaulting a police officer" part where the felony comes in, not anything that happened with the bus driver. Either way, a victim doesn't have to press charges in order for the DA to prosecute.

[spyral_path]

Spitting on someone is considered battery. I don't know if battery is always a felony, but I do know that there are stronger penalties written into the law to protect bus drivers, school employees, and I think postal workers.

[lickety_split]

throwing a deadly missile into an occupied vehicle.

WAT

[chaya]

Patio chairs are often decorated with lit molotov cocktails in Florida. Didn't you know?

[deathchibi]

Uh. You can really hurt someone throwing a freaking patio chair at them. 9 year olds aren't /small/ or weak. Especially not if the thing comes through a glass window. Asphalt isn't exactly soft either.

That said, I think something serious is going on at the girl's home or with the girl herself and she needs something besides jail.

[chaya]

I know that thrown things can injure people. ~Deadly missile~ is still overkill, and I have never seen a non-old-timey bus that has windows made of actual glass.

[washable]

Instead of pressing charges against this little girl, maybe they should check out the home situation and her mental state....

[kitanabychoice]

That would be too much like right.

[skellington1]

No shit, right?

I saw 'released to custody of her parents' and thought "Er, if a nine year old is doing that, perhaps you ought to check out her parents. Is "I'll fucking kill you!" something she hears at home?!" It's not the only explanation, but it certainly springs to mind.

[archanglrobriel]

And this is news because? I mean seriously...I used to work with special needs kids and kids with emotional/behavioral issues and this was just a frickin' day at the office for me. I got hit, kicked, bit, spit on, shoved, punched, cursed out and called every name in the book but as a professional whose JOB involved working with children - including the B-mod kids, I knew how to handle it, how not to escalate and how much help these kids get what they needed to get their anger/emotionality "back in the box" when they went off like that. I didn't call the COPS for cryin' out loud

[smilenoddelete]

Exactly. Although they don't specify that this child is considered special needs. If she is, they should've handled this better. If not, she needs an evaluation and a lot of behavioral management. And maybe some meds, all around. ;-)

[lickety_split]

Is she special needs?

The driver probably called the cops because she got off, not because the kid lost control of herself. The driver can't run after her (and leave the other kids alone on the bus) and they're probably not allowed to use physical restraint to make children comply either, so s/he probably only did what they could.

[fenris_lorsrai]

Yeah, this. The bus driver is in a tough situation there. I'm suspecting s/he originally called into dispatch, who then called a cop when they heard the kid was off the bus.

This is a good reason for buses to have an additional ride along monitor. I VAGUELY recall having those when I was young, but I think they went missing in some round of other of budget cuts, along with classroom aides. drive safely & keep order on rowdy kids unfortunately are conflicting goals. you can't do both well.

and meanwhile, this poor kid. printing her picture isn't going to help and this definitely sounds like there's something serious going on for things to escalate that badly and quickly. I would be very curious if there was someone waiting at home that wasn't normally there. a new babysitter, an uncle, the new boyfriend, etc and this was really an outburst over not wanting to be home with That Person.