Demon-seed Kids now Appearing?

bhaktajan · April 3, 2008

April 3, 2008

Experts Cast Doubt on 3rd-Grader Plot

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/experts-cast-doubt-on-3rd-grader-plot/20080401150309990001

By RUSS BYNUM,

AP

Posted: 2008-04-02 22:22:06

WAYCROSS, Ga. (April 2) - Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it is unlikely that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.

Police say the plot at Center </ST1:PElementary School</ST1:Place began because the children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently angry after the teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair.

Students brought a crystal paperweight, a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs and other items as part of last week's plot, police said Tuesday. They said nine students were involved, but prosecutors are seeking juvenile charges against only three of them.

Experts said children that age are certainly imaginative and capable of creating elaborate games. But Dr. Louis Kraus, a child psychiatry expert at <ST1:PRush University </ST1:PMedical </ST1:PCenter in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com ><st1:place w:st= <ST1 ><st1:City w:st= <st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:City>, said he doubts they would have actually attacked.

"The reality is it is highly unlikely they would have been successful at this," Kraus said. "Even if it had begun, it's unclear whether they actually would have followed through with it."

Most premeditated acts of student violence in schools usually don't occur until high school, Kraus said. Younger children have been known to bring knives or other weapons to school, experts said, but often it's more a matter of showing off or acting tough than part of a deliberate assault attempt.

Police said the plot had been organized enough that some students were assigned specific roles such as covering classroom windows and cleaning up any mess.

Most children under the age of 12 don't generally experience the kind of long-standing anger necessary for a premeditated crime, said Dan Mears, an associate professor at <ST1:PFlorida </ST1:PState</ST1:P University </ST1:P<st1:place w:st="on">College </ST1:Pof <ST1:PCriminology </st1:place>and Criminal Justice.

"Kids tend to be more spontaneous," Mears said. "If they're angry, they act on it right then."

The district attorney is seeking juvenile charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault against an 8-year-old boy and two girls, ages 9 and 10. The girls are also charged with bringing weapons to school.

News of the alleged plot spread quickly through this small south Georgia city on the northern edge of the <st1:place w:st="on">Okefenokee Swamp</st1:place>, where residents are preparing for their annual SwampFest celebration this weekend.

"They were so young, I just couldn't believe it," said Euleathia Harris, 50, who lives in a public housing complex near the school. "I wouldn't think anything like that would happen in little ol' <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Waycross</st1:place></st1:City>. I guess if it can happen in the big cities, it can happen here."

Police Chief Tony Tanner said the plot unraveled when a student reported to school officials Friday that a classmate had a knife in her backpack.

School officials say they punished all nine students, and some received long-term suspension, but they would not be more specific. Under school system rules, children who bring weapons to school may also face expulsion.

Tanner and District Attorney Rick Currie did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Shavette Owens, whose 7- and 8-year-old children attend the school, said she was glad officials had taken action, but was still somewhat shaken.

"Where were my kids at when these kids had all those weapons?" Owens said. "My heart just dropped, I didn't know what to think."

<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> law prohibits bringing adult criminal charges against children under 13, but places no age limit on children sent to juvenile court.

Although juvenile offenders can be locked up in detention centers, Randee Waldman, director of the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic at Emory University School of Law, said the children accused in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Waycross</st1:place></st1:City> seem far too young for that.

"It would take an extraordinary circumstance for a child under the age of 10 to be detained," Waldman said. "Juvenile court is rehabilitative in nature. It's not designed to be punitive."

Children so young often aren't considered competent to stand trial, Waldman said, because they lack the maturity to understand even the basics of the legal system. They may also be deemed too young to have had criminal intent, she said.

Associated Press writer Russ Bynum reported from <st1:City w:st="on">Waycross</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Ga.</st1:State> Mike Stobbe reported from <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:City>.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2008-04-01 15:05:09

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<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"></st1:City></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">WAYCROSS</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Ga.</st1:State></st1:place>–A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said today.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at <ST1:PCenter </ST1:PElementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Waycross</st1:place></st1:City> police Chief Tony Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school. Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her with the knife.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. ``We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages eight to 10, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, `We thought they were just kidding,"' Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention centre.

Police seized a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and the paperweight from the students, Tanner said.

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages nine and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an eight-year-old boy who brought tape. He said all three students faced charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls were being charged with bringing weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the <st1:place w:st="on"><ST1:PWare </ST1:PCounty </ST1:P</st1:place> school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

He said the teacher told detectives the children involved weren't known as troublemakers.

"You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon – we do whatever and then she stands up and she's OK. That's a hard call."

The parents of the students have co-operated with investigators, who aren't allowed to question the children without their parents' or guardians' consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children's names.

Martin told The Florida Times-Union of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Jacksonville</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Fla.</st1:State></st1:place>, that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.

"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that's what we did."

Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.

Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

"We don't want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else's child at lunch or out on the playground."

"This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids," Center Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper.