Toy Grenade In Backpack: Quick, Call Homeland Security!

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The police—and even Department of Homeland Security officers—descended upon a Hardin County, Tennessee, school after a teacher found an object that looked like a hand grenade in a student's backpack.

The object was actually a toy hand grenade. While it did resemble the real thing, it was harmless. Still, authorities quickly arrived and evacuated not just Hardin County High School, but every school in the district. Cops dispatched drug-sniffing dogs to search the entire building. Even Homeland Security showed up.

The student who brought the toy to school has not been named, and it isn't yet clear whether it was an accident or on purpose. But according to WBBJTV, the student told his teacher about it, which is what prompted her to make the discovery. It's possible that he brought the toy to school to scare people; but it seems much more likely—and is often the case in these types of incidents—that the presence of the lookalike grenade on school property was an accident and he informed his teacher about it in order to avoid a panic.

The student will face a disciplinary board meeting on Friday, at which time more details hopefully will be made public. But regardless of the students' intentions, the result will likely be the same: Lengthy suspension or outright expulsion. From WBBJTV:

Sheriff Davidson said the student has no history of trouble with the district or with law enforcement. He said they have questioned the student and his parents.

"No history, and whether the intent is there or not, that'll be one of the things we'll look into," he said.

Davis said the student will have to attend a disciplinary hearing Friday to determine what his punishment will be. He is suspended until that hearing.

He also said the school district has a zero-tolerance policy for such items on school property, and the offense could result in expulsion from school for one year.

"Zero tolerance" means ignoring intention and treating even trivial or accidental infractions of school weapon policies as serious crimes.

Comments

[Idle Hands]

Wow these people are pants wetters and should be treated as such.

[Robert]

No, they're not pants wetters. They weren't scared. They obviously knew that what they were doing bore no relationship to any threat. There's no more reason to close all the schools of a district & search them all after a student says he had a toy grenade there then there would be to close & search them all the time. Therefore the cops just needed to justify their jobs, and everybody else wanted time off.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

If the toy grenade would have toy triggered, someone could have been toy hurt by the toy explosion.

[Idle Hands]

boom!

[Almanian!]

...goes the dynamite!

[Idle Hands]

Are you sure it's not more of a bang?

[Almanian!]

This guy says it's "boom". Me, I'm flexible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trf6Y_5brsk

POW!

[Drake]

Really more of a ca-rumpfff - but most microphones can't pick it up.

[Hyperion]

Someone could have seen it and been 'triggered'. That's all it takes, mister, to do serious harm.

[Hyperion]

I can just envision this teacher running around the school with peed in pants.

[Idle Hands]

I kind of envision that seen in the exorcist where she just urinates on the carpet.

[Idle Hands]

*scene.

[Almanian!]

I seen what you did there

[Drake]

When were those "pineapple" grenades retired? I joined the Marines in '89 and never saw one.

[Swiss Servator, Bern baby Bern]

I joined the Army in 1985 - and they had been gone for many a year...

[some guy]

Army and Corps stopped using them in the 60's. They were discontinued in the 70's. The Navy was the last to give them up... of course.

[Agammamon]

Don't be too hard on the Navy about that stuff.

Military requisitions tend to go like this.

When its shiny and new the Army gets it.

When the Army gets a new shiny toy they hand-down the old ones to the Marines.

After the Marines have broken most of them, the remainder are given to the Navy.

We still used steel pots from the Vietnam era. Until around 2088ish our lighterage was still based on a pre-Vietnam war design, even though the Army had already upgraded to the MLS.

[Drake]

Us Marines always envied the Navy M14s. We would ask the Squids to break them out and let us play with them. Such a better weapon than our shitty M16s.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Never, ever bring yourself to the attention of the authorities. I sure hope this kid learned his lesson.

[Almanian!]

Dumped ALL THE OTHER SCHOOLS IN THE DISTRICT.

But teh evul little kid who brought the FAKE grenade to school is the problem.

EVERY OTHER SCHOOL IN THE DISTRICT - DUMPED.

Jesus fuck.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Those toy grenades have an enormous blast radius.

[Bean Counter]

YES THEY DO!! It's 1/infinity and infinity is a really big number, so this was really a measured and reasonable response by people who are obviously qualified to teach our children.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Nu-uh, I shot you first!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I find this all quite humorous.

Because if I didn't I would probably drink myself to death.

[Hugh Akston]

Davis said the student will have to attend a disciplinary hearing Friday to determine what his punishment will be.

Well at least he'll get a fair chance to dispute the charges against him. I'm sure his attorney is already preparing the case.

[SusanM]

It'll be a fair and unbiased hearing where they arbitrarily punish him as they've planned all along

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Certain Doom seems fair, I guess.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

These guys have way, way, way, way-way-WAY too much budget.

[flye]

Sure it was a toy hand grenade, but it caused every school in the district to be evacuated. So just like charging a perp for the bystander shot by a cop, this kid must be made to pay.

[Lord Humungus]

I say to myself that maybe one day all the nanny "for the children" panty-wetters will wake up and say: "Holy shit, we've been nuts all these years. WTF are we thinking?"

But it never happens. It just gets worse and worse.

[Hyperion]

Well, the pants wetters have kids. And they teach the kids to be even bigger pants wetters. Next thing you know, it's just pants wetters all the way down.

[db]

That gets pretty damn wet at the bottom.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

It's a lot of work to piss on people's legs and tell them it's raining. Better to train them to piss on their own legs and tell it to themselves.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Cops dispatched drug-sniffing dogs to search the entire building

Of course.

Because the obvious thing to do when there is a threat of a bombing is to bring in the drug-sniffing dogs.

[Hyperion]

They probably already got word that it was only some kid with a toy grenade. So they thought might as well find some drugs or something.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Overtime, baby.

[DFG]

And they got to put on all their camo gear, load the AR-15s and roll out the APC they got from Homeland Security. They like to play with it every chance they get. I wonder why they aren't holding a disciplinary hearing for all the other kids as well? It would make just as much sense as evacuating all the other schools in the district, you know, where there weren't toy grenades.

[Agammamon]

You know the sad part here?

Its about a 50/50 split as to whether the cops brought drug (vice *bomb*) sniffing dogs or that the report doesn't know there's a difference.

[Cdr Lytton]

Did they use toy drug-sniffing dogs?

[db]

What they really need to do.is pass a law making parents responsible for what the kids bring to.school and start throwing them in jail. If parents aren't inspecting their kids backpacks daily for.contraband, how are the kids going to learn anything about living in today's society. Throw enough parents in jail and the.problem will fix.itself.

[Hyperion]

Agreed. All those new jails we're going to have to build is a jobs creator. And then all the parentless kids will need state nannies, so there's more jobs created. It's a WIN/WIN.

[db]

Also, all SWAT team training should be done as on-the-job training. Basically, once a month, randomly select a residential address in the jurisdiction and run a full SWAT raid on it. Don't announce it as an exercise, just let it.all play out. Seriously, they could do this, and as long as Procedures Are Followed, there would be no repercussions. It is every citizen's duty to take part in the training of.our heroes by being part of the random raid pool.

[some guy]

They'll send out flyers to everyone reminding them of what to do to reduce their chances of getting injured if their house gets selected. It will include instructions on how to dispose of the remains of any pets.

[db]

Nah, don't even announce the policy. Just stonewall any FOIA that happens to be submitted, cloak the Procedures in Security protection, and discourage people from complaining by handing out big legal settlements from the tax receipts, and it'll be.smooth sailing.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

handing out big legal settlements from the tax receipts,

Seems an inefficient relic from a pre 9/11 world. Better to require absolute silence about it under threat of being thrown in a rape cage for 10 years.

[db]

I think it would be better to encourage participation by making violation of.your property rights essentially equivalent to winning the.lottery.

[db]

Bingo. Pair up the newly parentless kids with welfare recipients to act as foster parents. Jack up their bennies to cover the new kid and then accept EBT cards at the local casino.

Just burn it all to the fucking ground.

[The Late P Brooks]

It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!

[The Late P Brooks]

he informed his teacher about it in order to avoid a panic.

When will they learn?

STFU

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Along with the existence of the TSA, "homeland security" arriving in tiny Hardin County, TN to investigate a toy grenade is a sign of the end times of the American experiment. The sooner we have colonies on the moon, the better.

[Riven]

I hope the first colony isn't comprised entirely of whalers...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60BjkUtqxPE

[Hyperion]

Oh noes, the Japanese! Fuck a you whales, fuck a you, dolpheeensss!!!

[Drake]

This was TN? Forty years-ago, my teachers in MA were far less pants-wetting than TN is now?

My teachers back then were regular men and women. Probably would have slapped me across the head. Many of the male teachers were Vets who would not have peed pants or done anything besides confiscate the toy.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

One fucktard TN public school teacher does not equate to the whole state. There are plenty of self-identified "conservatives" in Tennessee who will be pissed about this due to the suppressed libertarian attitudes that rural life cultivates.

[spqr2008]

I actually knew better than this. If my dad left his toolbox in a car that I was driving that day (because I didn't have my own car, but used whichever of the van or the truck he didn't need that day) I didn't ever tell anyone about it. Same when I accidentally packed a pocket knife into school because I had used my school backpack for a Scout trip that weekend. Although in that case, I put the knife in my viola case, because they didn't want to F*** with searching instruments. The first chair violinist often brought in her $25K Stradivarius violin, which let me tell you, pissed of the drug dogs something fierce. (Years and years of random drug smells all backed into a 400 year old violin.)

[spqr2008]

*baked