Where Your Children Are alabama, florida, michigan, mississippi, ohio, tennessee

School Resource Officers, “pillars of the community”

Just a few news articles about school resource officers over the past couple weeks.

9/23/2019 – Florida school resource officer arrests, handcuffs 6-year-old girl
School resource officer fired after arresting 6-year-olds(“She was having a tantrum,” so apparently police were called in. Their hands were bound with zip ties, they were fingerprinted and charged with battery. But the officer was fired, so I guess all’s well that ends well, right?)

9/24/2019 – School resource officer faces charge after student said he choked him (A Mississippi SRO was placed on administrative leave. The student says he was pushed into the ladies’ restroom and choked. The SRO insists it’s all a lie. Witnesses, including two teachers, corroborate the student’s story.)

9/26/2019 – Alabama grandmother alleges SRO harassed middle school student (An SRO approached a group of children in the lunch room and asked “Which one of y’all’s daddies have I not arrested yet?” When a girl responded that her father hadn’t been arrested, the SRO responded with, “That’s because you don’t know who your daddy is.” This officer has an apparent history of harassing students, yet he remains on duty.)

10/1/2019 – Lawsuit alleges disabled Parma student was sprayed with drink by school resource officer prior to suspension (Ohio parents filing the lawsuit claim they have audio proving the SRO sprayed the child with a juice box as they waited for the principal. They are also claiming discrimination – the student is American, but of Arab descent. Many of these incidents involving SRO’s are allegedly racially motivated.)

10/4/2019 – Jasper Middle School resource officer resigns after probe into texts with students (The Tennessee SRO resigned even though there was found to be “nothing inappropriate” about texting middle school students at all hours of the day and night.)

10/4/2019 – School resource officer sentenced to 1 year in jail for sexually assaulting 3 high school students (A Michigan SRO pleaded no contest to charges such as criminal sexual assault of a minor, assault, and misconduct in office. One of his victims had aspirations of becoming a police officer. Now she is scarred for life. He gets a whopping year in prison.)

This woman gets it. Her article about the need to eliminate school resource officers is spot on, and advocates for the students SRO’s do not. Schools infringe on civil liberties as they are, but school resource officers only compound the issue.

Where Your Children Are tennessee

Teacher Allegedly Abducts Teen Student, Arrested

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image courtesy Google Maps

Google “girl runs off with…” and watch what word pops up next. Girl runs off with boyfriend? Five thousand dollars? Backpack full of stolen merchandise? Think again.

“Girl runs off with teacher,” is the top suggestion, for the pure reason that the incident mentioned below is most definitely not a unique one.

It is alleged that 50-year-old Tad Cummins, health sciences teacher at Culleoka High School in Culleoka, Tennessee where he’d been working for nearly 6 years, abducted 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas, evading authorities for more than a month as they traveled through the country, eventually being apprehended in northern California. Cummins is insistent that this is his first and only offense, which is supposed to endear us to his plight, but should only make us more suspicious of every other seemingly model citizen working in the school system. He says Thomas was in an abusive home, and he was apparently rescuing her. Never mind that he kissed her in school, prior to the abduction. Never mind that he had been married for 31 years (his wife wisely filed for divorce sometime during the abduction – he has two children, girls, it turns out). Never mind that whatever the reason (maybe Thomas asked him to take her with him, maybe she followed him, maybe she threatened him), she was FIFTEEN.

We should be grateful at least, that this particular child predator was an idiot. Cummins attempted to kayak with Thomas from San Diego to Mexico, when he realized the waters were too rough and they were being watched by a law enforcement officer. They elected to remain in California. If they’d made it, who knows if they ever would have been found.

Cummins is being held in federal custody on a charge of transportation of a minor across state lines for sexual intercourse. The charge carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. In Tennessee, Cummins is being charged with felony kidnapping and misdemeanor having sexual contact with a minor.

FBI agent reveals how Tad Cummins allegedly evaded police for weeks after abducting ‘brainwashed’ student

See Tad Cummins’ arrest affidavit: New details released since Elizabeth Thomas found safe