School mistakes burrito for gun: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&e=1&u=/ap/burrito_lockdown
Ah, they’re calling him “Burrito Boy” now. Give that about a year and it’ll happen for real.
“The police saw it and everyone just started laughing. It was a laughter of relief,” Morrissey said.
“Oh, and I have a new nickname now. It’s Burrito Boy.”
Yeh, there’s a nickname to be proud of.
Also, all that fuss because someone ‘thought’ he saw someone carrying a gun? I guess I can understand the fear of guns in school, no one really wants to see a few more kids blown away because little Timmy can’t deal with the bullies ( and we all know that’s why this happens… ) but still if I saw someone walking down the street with something that looked like a gun, I’d check it out first. I wonder how long it’s going to be before some kid gets shot to shit because some dumbass cop gets trigger happy and can’t tell the difference between the kids lunch or a gun.
A 30-inch burrito might qualify as a deadly weapon.
Heck yeah! Next they’ll be bringing in those dangerous mini-pizzas.
And if the school had done nothing, and it had turned out to be a gun, and the guy who sounded the alarm had then said, “Well, I just thought it was a burrito,” what would this thread be about now?
As someone who was working as a teacher when Columbine went down, I have to say, erring on the side of EXTREME caution is not a bad thing.
What would you prefer? Sanity? Guess what. We don’t live there anymore.
If we ever did.
"Shyness is nice, and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You want to.
But if it’s not love…
Then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb,
That will keep us together."
-Amanpour
Yeah, because there’s no middle ground between assuming it’s safe (“Looks like a burrito”) and calling the police in. If it’s wrapped up like it clearly was, even at a glance, there’s opportunity to walk up to the kid and say “Hey, is that a burrito in your arms, or are you just happy to see me?”
It might be understandable, but treating kids without guns like they might be kids with guns is actually a REALLY bad thing. School shootings are incredibly rare, even if they are tragic and scary. It’s not a good thing to treat schools and kids like they’re all potential killers because, statistically speaking, it’s more likely that your students are hermaphrodites than killers.
See… I’m afraid of serial killers (serial killers are MUCH more common than school shooters btw Amanpour) but I don’t confront the neighbors, search them, or treat them like serial killers no matter how quiet and normal they seem!
Neither of which answers the question with which I opened my post.
Why?
People who fly planes into buildings are even more rare than either serial killers or school shooting-ers. Would you have us run airport security to reflect this?
“Nine times out of ten it’s an electric razor, but every once in awhile…”
-Amanpour
I don’t know about Bub, but we should run airport security like the Isrealis do if we’re actually trying to catch terrorists, or give up on the in-airport thing entirely and rely on pre-screening. Our current system isn’t going to catch shit.
In this case, I’m not sure if the responsibility for the degree of response rests on school officials. The linked article suggests the response was instituted by local law enforcement, not the school. The first paragraph said that somebody (a parent, I’d guess) observed the student entering the school with the wrapped tasty treat and contacted “authorities.” I interpret authorities to mean cops, not the principal.
Maybe the cops need a better system of communicating with the school – the principal could have conducted a surprise inspection of all student lockers before needing to go to lockdown.
I agree with Andrew, though; we spend way too much time and money trying to prevent events that are statistically tiny, and nobody benefits by viewing the average schoolchild as a potential terrorist. Increased airport security, in my opinion, may be psychologically comforting, but hasn’t significantly increased actual safety.
Why?[/quote]
A suspicious state is like a terrorist state… its one-mode.
A traditional military state has a divide between civilians and the military. A terrorist state breaks down that divide… there is no true civilian in a terrorist state.
Within civilian life another divide occurs between police officers and non-police officers. The police are the ones to handle crime.
What all of this does is to create different social realities, different cultures. If what you’re saying is that instead of policemen handling crime (or potential crime) the PEOPLE do it, you are saying the traditional barrier of police/non-police should be broken down. Take a look at the culture in the Soviet Union for a glimpse of what happens when people are continuously suspicious of each other.
One effect is that continuous suspicion allows for more draconian laws. Make everyone a police officer and the people will become a lot more open to “police laws”.
Freedom does not survive any state of continual suspicion.
Yes, and it matters how you live your life those nine out of ten times. You’d better believe its impossible to not change your life for the nine times and just change it on the tenth.
Is it WORTH IT for a reflex advantage on the tenth?
The man who looks is more likely to see, but the man who looks cannot look somewhere ELSE.
So… how’s the view?
The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.
That’s a pretty big fucking burrito. Also, they took it apart to make sure that a gun wasn’t just wrapped inside the burrito?
Why?
People who fly planes into buildings are even more rare than either serial killers or school shooting-ers. Would you have us run airport security to reflect this?
“Nine times out of ten it’s an electric razor, but every once in awhile…”
-Amanpour[/quote]
Wait, we’re running airport security more effectively?
The Israeli system is very effective but relies on a lot of profiling on ethnicity, origin, sex, age, etc. Stuff that would get our government in a world of legal hurt.
Does anybody know if Google has some kind of Koontz translator, or if there’s a Firefox plug-in I could use instead of trying to read that post again?
Thanks.
"Walter, just stand outside so Chief can translate my Iraqi ass map, okay?
-Amanpour
The Israeli system is very effective but relies on a lot of profiling on ethnicity, origin, sex, age, etc. Stuff that would get our government in a world of legal hurt.[/quote]
If done right, there’s be little opposition. Whether we do it right…
And the fact that they have like… one airport.
Pssh, is anyone really going to complain about the money?
And what if it still was a burrito, and a cop shot him because he “went for” the burrito, figuring to set it down, because he’s only WTF is with these cops? and not Oh, obviously my long burrito has been mistaken for a weapon, what would this thread be about now?
If a burrito looks like a weapon, what else does? Aluminum bats, flashlights, water bottles, drafting/portfolio tubes, only about a million cylindrical things that any student might innocently be carrying. I can understand your reticence XMA, but I’m agfraid this still qualifies as hysteria. Hysterical reactions are always justified by the “But what if it was?” defense.
Don’t forget wallets.
BTW, I got a burrito from Bimbo’s Bitchin’ Burrito (stupid name, good food) last night. Size? 8 inches, wrapped in foil.