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View Full Version : Student investigated, faces expulsion, after comparing square root sign to gun



Teh One Who Knocks
02-27-2018, 01:21 PM
WISC-TV Channel 3


https://i.imgur.com/y2Y89YV.png

The home of a Louisiana high school student was searched after police interpreted a comment about the square root symbol as a possible terrorist.

The Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation of a student at Oberlin High School after he compared the math symbol to a gun, according to local news station KATC. Authorities said the student later said something that could be interpreted as a threat.

Deputies told KATC that they searched the teenager's home after receiving a tip that, according to information spreading on social media, he was planning to bring a gun to school the next day.

The incident happened less than a week after 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland were killed when a gunmen opened fire.

A post on the Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office Facebook page said the student "used extremely poor judgment in making the comment,” KATC reported. “But in light of the actual circumstances, there was clearly no evidence to support criminal charges.”

The student was not arrested or charged, but under a new policy enacted by the local school board, he remains banned from the school property and faces expulsion.

Allen Parish School District Superintendent Michael Doucet said students were working together on a math problem when "a student made a math symbol of a square root sign, which kind of looks like a pistol.

"And he was helping a weaker student, and the student says, 'Well, that looks like a pistol!' And he just made a comment [like] 'let's just get to work before I shoot you with a pistol.'”

Under the new policy, students accused of talking about guns or school shootings will be investigated by the school board, the sheriff's department, and the district attorney's office.

"The first thing we're going to do is remove that student from the premises with proper authority. Then, we're going to have a home visit done by detectives of the sheriff's department, and if no charges are filed, we're going to conduct a threat assessment on the student,” Doucet said.

Doucet told KATC that he's is concerned by the new stricter guidelines, but doesn't want to take any chances.

"Does it concern me sometimes? Sure it does!" he said. "But if you lost a child and didn't take an incident seriously because you thought it was minor and something did happen, that parent that lost that child would be hard to explain.”

Hal-9000
02-27-2018, 07:11 PM
I guess this is the other side of it. Now one of the kids will do the wink and double finger guns implying coolness, and he'll get arrested for being a possible shooter.

Teh One Who Knocks
02-27-2018, 07:39 PM
The problem becomes the absolute lack of common sense applied to things going forward. It reminds of the 'zero tolerance' some schools have against weapons and they have a first grader detained by police because one of their parents accidentally sent a butter knife with them in their lunch box.

Hal-9000
02-27-2018, 07:49 PM
Yet they'll overlook things like blatant threats of violence on Youtube :|

Teh One Who Knocks
02-27-2018, 07:55 PM
Exactly....and multiple warnings at that and then say they 'followed protocol' :wha:

Hal-9000
02-27-2018, 08:06 PM
You see that the sheriff's office was publicizing that the school resource officer 'failed' and implied he was one of the reasons people died. Right at the time evidence came out saying the sheriff's office may have overlooked some disturbing prior events involving the shooter.