Two weeks. Four felony arrests of Flagler County students who didn’t physically lay a finger on anyone. Four cases that will have to wend their way through the courts or juvenile system for months.
Felony charges for young offenders who are “acting stupid.”
• Jan. 26, an 18-year-old student at Matanzas High School was arrested after recording a song in which he threatened to kill a school administrator. We listened to the song. There’s not a line fit to print in a family newspaper, and the threats are explicit, but a felony?
• Jan. 27, an 11-year-old student at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School in Palm Coast. A police report says he was arrested after he threatened to blow up the school and use a gun against students. A search of his backpack turned up a knife with a 2½-inch blade and a can of mace. Reason to be concerned? Definitely. But a felony?
• Feb. 3, a 12-year-old at Bunnell Elementary. Police say he told other students to stay home the next day, because he planned on “shooting up the school.” He told police he’d been joking. We can see why some students would be frightened. But a felony?
• Feb. 4, an 11-year-old Bunnell Elementary student. Before his arrest, he’d been singing a song about guns and shooting in class, police said. After being told to stop, he was searching for gun information on the internet and talking to other students about them. The next day, he pointed his iPad at his teacher, and threatened to shoot her while making gun noises, the report says. We can see why this is upsetting. But … a felony?
Following each incident, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly pointed directly at the biggest problem here: “Parents — it is time to talk to your children and remind them that their words matter,” he said after the third arrest, The News-Journal’s Frank Fernandez reported. “Please be the sheriff in your home so we don’t have to be.”
That’s definitely where it starts, with parental responsibility. Too often, students don’t realize until it’s too late that repeating the violent dialogue from movies, or songs they hear on apps like Soundcloud, can be easily deemed a threat.
Staly says Florida law — passed after the horrific massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018 — gives him almost zero leeway. Threats of violence, made at a school, are felonies. Period.
That needs to change. So-called “zero tolerance” policies can result in tragic absurdities. Lawmakers should give local law enforcement more discretion to reduce charges in cases where the child clearly didn’t intend to carry out the threat.
But — as Staly also says — that can be a very tough call. No police officer or agency wants to be responsible for failing to catch the next troubled kid that actually tries to carry out an act of violence.
That’s where local officials can act. We’d suggest that Staly look to Volusia County, where Sheriff Mike Chitwood has been agitating for a facility known as a “juvenile assessment center” since he was first elected. If the two counties join forces — as they have in St. Johns, Nassau, Clay and Duval counties – they might stand a better chance of making such a center work.
The value of a juvenile assessment center comes from an intake process that includes not just law enforcement but mental-health counselors, school officials, family safety and social-service advisors and more. It’s a team far better equipped to judge whether a particular juvenile constitutes a real threat — or if an apparently criminal act was really a cry for help from a child struggling with unseen problems.
Chitwood says he was close to launching such a facility when the coronavirus pandemic hit, in conjunction with SMA Healthcare and other partners. Both he and Staly said that they’d be open to joining forces. Some issues would need to be resolved — Staly’s not keen on the idea of transporting offenders deep into the heart of Volusia County — but it’s worth at least a discussion.
The alternative — branding kids with felonies for what Staly and Chitwood both describe as “acting stupid” — is unworkable and cruel.
— Daytona Beach News-Journal
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February 23, 2021 at 12:00PM
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