Brickbat: Kids in the Hall

Charles Oliver | 4.19.2012 9:30 AM

Students at Jack Robey Junior High School in Arkansas weren't returning to class after lunch fast enough for one school resource officer. So he pepper sprayed the hallway. Three students had to be taken to the hospital.

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plu1959 13 years ago

OK, now this is what I call a brickbat.
Soc Indv Sparky 13 years ago

one school resource officer

That is one bullshit title for a useless person in a made-up job.
1. RBS 13 years ago
  
  Usually, at least here in SC, the SRO is some dipshit cop who can't handle it out in the adult world.
  1. Karl Hungus 13 years ago
    
    Usually, at least here in SC, the SRO is some dipshit cop who can't handle it out in the adult world.
    
    So someone too mean and stupid to make it out on patrol is deposited amongst your children. What could go wrong, right?
    1. RBS 13 years ago
      
      Nothing at all.
      1. Karl Hungus 13 years ago
        
        Nothing at all.
        
        Truly awesome.
        
        When I was in junior high, we had an LAPD officer assigned to our school as part of the DARE program. Officer Webster, nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. One day he was showing a classroom of students all his equipment, and he took out his .38 revolver (this was 1985, before they went to 9mm), pointed it at the back wall of the classroom, pulled the trigger, and blew a hole through the back wall. No one was hurt and he kept his job, but students would tease him about it without mercy from then on. He took it in stride, though.
RFID 13 years ago

I love the meeting "to discuss the fate of the school resource officer". What meeting? Why?

I work in software. I'm struggling to think of anything I could do at my workplace that would nearly be as bad as gassing a hallway full of kids would be to someone who worked at a school. Things that seem completely pedestrian by comparison (such as being rude to a client) would earn me an on-the-spot firing, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So why isn't this asshole fired yet?
1. SugarFree 13 years ago
  
  Fired would be great, fired and arrested for assault would be better.
  1. Tim 13 years ago
    
    Oh, like you never passed gas in the hallway...
    1. Episiarch 13 years ago
      
      Trust me, you do not want to experience what comes out of NutraSweet. It's considered a war crime.
      1. Tim 13 years ago
        
        I remember with a certain evil pride the joy of "cropdusting" a hallway of my fellow students at their lockers. I found their groans and gagging as I receded into the distance intoxicating.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I used to do that on the bus. One time it was so bad the driver opened the door.
        Memories...
        
        Tim 13 years ago
        
        Mi amigo.
        
        Episiarch 13 years ago
        
        One time I was in Advanced Chemistry and we were working with cyanide in the hood. All of a sudden, everyone near the hallway starts coughing and spluttering, and the teacher yells at us to get the hell out of the room so we all jet out the exterior door into the quad, thinking that there had been a cyanide release. It turned out that some kid got hassled in the hall and pepper sprayed his hassler, and the ventilation system carried it into the room. Hilarious.
        
        Baby, my cash money! 13 years ago
        
        We used to get this stuff in a bottle from a joke shop called Morning Breeze. Just open the cap and the entire place smells like an egg fart.
        
        http://www.amazon.com/BWacky-M.....B0038B7K92
        
        Karl Hungus 13 years ago
        
        We used to get this stuff in a bottle from a joke shop called Morning Breeze.
        
        When I was a teen, my friend had something similar. It was in an aerosol can, and on the back label it said, "Spraying ----- in a crowded room could cause a stampede." I can't remember the actual name of the stuff, and I don't remember if that was an actual warning, or just the manufacturer bragging on his product. I just remember that just sniffing the inside of the cap made me gag.
        
        Pope Jimbo 13 years ago
        
        Once early in the morning at work, I took the elevator down to grab a cup of coffee. I was the only one on the elevator, so I let loose with an extra kimchi flavored blast as I was getting off.
        
        After picking up a coffee and the paper I pushed the up button and lo and behold it was the same elevator. Even better, there was a guy in it who had just gotten on himself.
        
        As I was assaulted by my own stink, I gave the poor dude a mean look. He sputtered that it wasn't him and that it was already foul when he got on, but I just sadly shook my head to let him know how pathetic I thought his lies were.
        
        Karl Hungus 13 years ago
        
        He sputtered that it wasn't him and that it was already foul when he got on, but I just sadly shook my head to let him know how pathetic I thought his lies were.
        
        That was a dick move, dude.
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  the meeting "to discuss the fate of the school resource officer".
  
  BUUUUURRRNN HIM!!
3. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  So why isn't this asshole fired yet?
  
  One word. Starts with a "u".
  1. Alack 13 years ago
    
    I don't see how him being ugly should change anything.
  2. Karl Hungus 13 years ago
    
    "Uniform" or "union"?
  3. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    ubermensch?
4. RedDragon6009 13 years ago
  
  Don't worry... the police are investigating the matter and justice will no doubt be rendered; by "justice" I mean the expulsion of those slow poke students and restitution to replace that poor resource officer's pepper spray.
5. TELLMOFF 13 years ago
  
  RFID, this asshole hasn't been fired yet because the one thing that assholes are great at is bonding with each other for protection.
John Tagliaferro 13 years ago

Those kids are not as resourceful or enterprising as Berkeley High kids.
o3 13 years ago

enhanced interrogation is moar friendly to the environment
The Unknown Pundit 13 years ago

Pepper spray, schmepper spray. You haven't lived until you've been tear-gassed like I was in high school!
1. Karl Hungus 13 years ago
  
  You haven't lived until you've been tear-gassed like I was in high school!
  
  My single worst day at Parris Island was the day we did the gas chamber. It's a closed, windowless room with a big pot of CS cooking on the floor in the center of the room. Ostensibly the purpose of the exercise is to teach you to don and clear your mask during a chemical attack and to give you confidence that the mask works (and it does, really well). But before they let you out, you have to remove your mask and slow-march around the room until you've had several good lungfuls. The only thing keeping a full-on panic from erupting is the presence of the Drill Instructors. Of all the eerie and unnatural shit I had to do in the Marine Corps, that was far and away the worst. I never had to do it again, but from that day on, anytime I caught even a whiff of CS out in the field, my chest would tighten up and my heart would start pounding. It was truly terrifying.
  1. Drake 13 years ago
    
    Yep - that was like a preview of Hell. I remember the DI's walking around in real chemical suits and thinking that they looked like demons about to torture us poor sinners. Then they told us to take off our masks and I was right.
    1. Karl Hungus 13 years ago
      
      Does this bring back some memories?
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        Oh, happy memories. They asked us questions in the gas chamber with our masks off. How they understood the nonsense I was spouting still baffles me. And who can forget the three foot long strings of snot after you get out?
        
        That and being in the dead pool at NTC when they teargassed us during lunch, just because.
        
        Karl Hungus 13 years ago
        
        That and being in the dead pool at NTC when they teargassed us during lunch, just because.
        
        I spent 10 days living in the desert at Ft. Irwin. Our job was to play the guerrilla force in some large-scale Army training operation. That place was BLEAK.
Hugh Akston 13 years ago

I must have missed the point where assault with chemical weapons became the standard first response for cops. I guess civvies are a lot easier to deal with when they are doubled over and unable to see or breathe.
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  The one thing public schools like this one are teaching kids is that they have no rights. Privacy, speech, self defense or the simple right not to be assaulted by the cops.
  1. TELLMOFF 13 years ago
    
    You are so right, Tim. Not all people in government are sadistic tyrants- librarians always provide a service with a smile. Oppression by government is concentrated in law enforcement and education.
Joe M 13 years ago

Okay, wow, if this isn't enough to get fired, we're well and truly fucked.

Pine Bluff police and school leaders will meet next week to determine the fate of a school resource officer who pepper sprayed students to get them to clear the hallway.

The fact that this takes some big discussion is a bad omen.

Students like her with breathing problems rushed outside. Parents and emergency crews took over the campus.

Just think how much longer it took the students to get to class from the hospital.

It's an incident Forney says could have been avoided.

But how? What other options were there? I mean, these kids were moving too slow, for godsake.
1. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  I also think it's a bad omen that the idea of pressing charges didn't even enter into my mind, because it's laughably impossible. Even getting fired is probably a hopeless dream, but at least it's still something I can imagine.
  1. TELLMOFF 13 years ago
    
    That "bad omen" is called police-state-America. It is caused by citizens who can not imagine that they have the duty to hate tyrants.
Tim 13 years ago

"How was school today Johnny?"

"Rough. The bus driver was drunk again and stalled out on the railrod tracks, Steve called him a lousy crackhead wino and got suspended for violating the speech code. The Police dog that was sniffing my locker for drugs pissed on my new backpack and ruined it. When I got mad about that Mr. Fish took me into the office and strip searched me. My peanut butter sandwich was confiscated at lunch and the plastic spork apparently violates the weapons zero tolerance policy- you'll be getting a letter in the mail. At recess we played soccer but they took away the ball after they caught us keeping score. I got detention for making fart noises during simulated moslem prayers in social studies and then...
1. Drake 13 years ago
  
  Little Johnny is the best.
2. TELLMOFF 13 years ago
  
  America is a fucked-up place to live because you have to live with Americans.
kibby 13 years ago

What the hell? This is Bizarro World, right?
anon 13 years ago

Ok, I know it's been a while since I was in school, but what the fuck is a "School Resource Officer?"
1. TELLMOFF 13 years ago
  
  A resource officer is someone who is well-connected and can't find honest employment.
Just Dropping By 13 years ago

I'm hoping that he's at least been sued individually by the students. I don't see how this wouldn't be a slamdunk battery case.
1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
  
  It's not battery when it is committed by a government employee. The law only applies to little people.
  1. Pi Guy 13 years ago
    
    That's right folks: don't get caught being a Little Person.

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