A school district and local prosecutors in Texas are refusing to drop charges against an 11-year-old who was held in solitary confinement.

Timothy Murray lost his father earlier this year and had been asking his principal for counseling when she called in the police

  • Herbal Gamer@sh.itjust.works
    35·
    11 months ago

    Data from Brownsville ISD seen by The Observer showed its officers made 3,102 student arrests between May 2021 and Nov. 2023. Nearly 60% of those were on felony charges and 76 of those kids were in elementary school.

    what the fuck is going on over there

    • Shurimal@kbin.social
      32·
      11 months ago

      High-speed school-to-prison pipeline. Because inmates=free labour and prisons are for-profit. Gotta get 'em kidz institutionalized as early as possible!

      • Perfide@reddthat.com
        7·
        11 months ago

        Yep. Also noticed that the principal that called the police and the DA refusing to drop the case have the same last name. Garza isn’t that rare of a last name, but it’s not exactly “Smith”, either. I’d bet good money those fuckers are related to each other.

        • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
          011·
          11 months ago

          I’m just saying… you never had a kid in class that was years older then everyone else, not doing shit, disrupting class all the time, getting violent and ending up in jail for attempt murder just after leaving school? I had. I wish there was a way to get him out of school earlier. I would be a better environment for everyone. But there wasn’t so they had to deal with him till he was 18 yo. Then on the other hand if you let teachers kick kids out they will get lazy and start locking up children for anything like in Texas.

            • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
              14·
              11 months ago

              Weird, in my case it was only in elementary school. High school was not mandatory so the disruptive kids simply didn’t go there.

              Edit: Oh, just realized that you probably also have middle school. I didn’t. It was the same school from age 7 to 15. Education was mandatory till 18 or 16 yo so the school was stuck with all the stupid kids till then.

              • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                4·
                11 months ago

                Ahhhh right, simple mistake to make. Middle school kids definitely deserve solitary confinement. Fucking what??

                I hope that maybe you’re just ignorant to what “solitary confinement” means, but even then, you’re talking about locking children away in fucking prison for misbehaving in 6th grade art class. Get a grip.

                • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
                  15·
                  11 months ago

                  Jesus, who’s talking about solitary confinement? Not even the original comment mentioned it. I definitely didn’t. Relax. It’s a shitty situation but getting angry about things you imagined is not going to save anyone.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    11 months ago

    Well thats just an entire chain of people that are so completely divorced from reality, common sense, and compassion, that humanity would only benefit from them being skimmed out of the gene pool.

  • Fargot Robbie@lemm.eeEnglish
    241·
    11 months ago

    Despite being accused of ignoring Texas laws which require parental involvement before such interventions, Cameron County District Attorney Rene Garza told a hearing Wednesday that his office was gathering further evidence against Murray, rather than deciding to drop the charges.

    If the law protects you, it will be ignored and the people who ignore it will face no consequences for their lawlessness. The law is for hurting you, and only laws that hurt you count.

  • FierroGamer@sh.itjust.works
    22·
    11 months ago

    I’ve tried to understand what the charges are, as far as I could tell it seems it’s somehow related to an anti terrorist law and caused by the kid pulling someone’s hair and gesturing to cut paper with scissors, which was interpreted as gesturing to cut a finger.

    The article seems to try very hard to obfuscate the actual reason (I’m guessing for legal reasons?)

    In any case, this seems insane, seems like excessive overreaction from everyone involved.

    • AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      The whole thing is weird.

      His ordeal began five days later. In the late morning of September 8, Timothy was pulled out of music class and ushered into a room where he found Garza, Assistant Principal Michelle Saucedo, a district police officer, and a counselor sent from the district’s central administrative office. He was told another student had just reported that Timothy said he was planning to kill the principal. Rincon said she was called and rushed to the school but was not allowed to be in the room while Timothy was being questioned.

      “When the police officer had his body cam off, they were yelling and telling me, ‘We’re gonna go to the full extent. We’re gonna put you in a lockbox,’” Timothy said. “Then, when the body cam was finally on, they were so nice.”

      Timothy told me he had explained to the school and district officials that the accusations were not true, that the only conversation he had that morning was with two other boys about wearing his sweater over his uniform.

      Rincon has received only a school conduct referral form, on which administrators wrote that “Timothy told another student that his hair was messy because he was up all night to come up with a plan to kill Mrs. Garza (principal).” Underneath, Timothy wrote: “No I was not up all night I just forgot [to comb my hair].”

      On the bottom of the form, administrators had written: “OSS [out-of-school suspension] 3 days 9/11-9/13.”

      https://www.texasobserver.org/why-was-this-11-year-old-honor-roll-student-put-in-solitary/

      • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
        16·
        11 months ago

        Not the point of this article/topic but why is law enforcement required to wear body cameras but they can turn them off whenever they want!? That’s asking for abuse! Unless they’re using the restroom (and even then I’d lean towards an independent reviewer deleting footage, if anyone). These are public servants on-the-clock! If there’s no enforcement, there’s no consequences to purposely deactivating the taxpayer-funded camera they’re supposed to be operating under…

    • AmberPrince@kbin.social
      6·
      11 months ago

      I thought the same thing. Here’s the archived Texas Observer article on it, which is what this article’s source seems to be.

      Apparently the principal heard from another student that this kid was “making threats” against her. Sounds pretty thin to me.

    • Murais@lemmy.one
      2·
      11 months ago

      Unless the kid brained someone with a tee ball trophy, I categorize this penalty in the “extreme” category.

    • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
      54·
      11 months ago

      Easy there. Finding reason to defund public schools is Greg Abbot’s wet dream. It’s the first step toward his goal of state vouchers to religious schools.

      Also consider that Brownsville is a border town of mostly Hispanic residents. What better sacrificial lamb to demonstrate the evils of public schools?

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    11 months ago

    One mother said that, after a meeting with Garza about her 5-year-old in which her own mom questioned the school’s special education plan for the boy, Garza called Child Protective Services on her.

    Garza’s mom questioned it? Or the 5yr old’s? Or the mother of the 5yr old’s? Who is “her” referencing?

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      2·
      11 months ago

      5-year-old, mom, and grandma showed up to the meeting with the principal. Grandma questioned the school’s special education plan. Principal called CPS on mom.