so are you saying that police intervention was the best way to solve this, and not a teacher asking her for the knife? Did it really take the gestapo to remove the weapon from the would-be 10 year old assailant?

Per school district policies, this was the only way to handle it. The knife was classified as a weapon, and lest the teacher or principal be sued by the likes of, well you know who, it was only procedure for the police to disarm the child.

Not saying the child posed a threat, but due to happy go lucky lawyers looking for another cash cow, the teachers had only to follow standard protocol.

When I was foreign exchange student in USA, Wisconsin, I was staying at a dorm and we had to go to uni's cafeteria. Sometimes they served apples, which I hate to bite, instead I cut them into 8 peaces. I asked a girl to do that for me, but she refused. Than I asked her to give me the knife to do it.... She goggled at me and started threatening to call the police. That was f*c|ng weird... but now I understand that it is FOR REAL!!! America.

And still, in my humble opinion, there is something wrong with the American society. Why there would be so many accidents involving guns, knifes and shooting at schools? In the last year I've probably heard about 5 such accidents in the USA. While in Ukraine there were probably... 2 unintentional accidents in the last 30 years?

We have let political correctness and fear of lawsuits replace reason and being humane. One remedy would be to require that anyone who imposes PC rules like this one is liable for all attorney and court costs plus the punishment that would have been given had the person been found guilty. And this includes all of the ones involved. In this case it would be the two teachers and the officers, AND those responsible for the school rule, that is, the principal and/or the school board. If the child was charged with a felony that called for, say six months in jail, and a jury found her innocent. She would receive all the associated costs from EACH of the ones involved in her arrest, and EVERY one of them would be sentenced to six months in jail. Agreed that most of the sentences would be suspended, but it would scare the hell out of everyone involved in this silliness.

In other words we have to punish the people who do stupid things because of stupid rules. Then maybe they'd learn to use common sense.

Geez, 65 years ago when I was in school, would pack my lunch of two buttered slices of bread sprinkled with salt and pepper, then include a nice ripe juicy home-grown tomato. I'd cut it with my jack knife and put on the bread. Had she done that in the morning, by lunch I'd have had a soggy mess. Strangely, I probably had a hundred tomato sandwiches at school and it never occurred to me to stab someone with my jack knife.

Occam

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by Spreadthetruth
They are in the UK. Try going fishing/hiking with a knife over 3 inches, and be arrested on the spot.

Thats not entirely true. Your talking about folding knives where the blade locks into the handle.

I don't understand why carrying a knife of any size with a lock on it is an offense. Seriously, freely folding knives can easily come back down and chop your fingers off.


I'm afraid the UK is an insane nanny-state, which will not stop until everything pointed or potentially dangerous (if not used correctly) is regulated under strict licencing, or banned.

When you think about it, then it's ridiculous but at the same time it's understandable. For example if some girl would bring a knife to school for her food on the staff allowed it, then one day she decided to stab a student. There would be outcries against the staff for letting her bring it and maybe lawsuits.

Originally posted by BlitzKrieger
When you think about it, then it's ridiculous but at the same time it's understandable. For example if some girl would bring a knife to school for her food on the staff allowed it, then one day she decided to stab a student. There would be outcries against the staff for letting her bring it and maybe lawsuits.

That's a good point, but it doesn't justify actually arresting the 10 year old girl and taking her to a juvenile assessment center in the back of a patrol car. The main problem I have with this is the actual lengths they went to with this girl. It was completely, inarguably unreasonable.

Couldn't they have avoided the potential court case if they had confiscated the knife and told her to cut the steak before she got to school next time?