Police: Mom Armed Bullied Son with BB Gun, Knife

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/AP

Conn. Woman Charged for Sending 12-Year-Old to School with Weapons, Allegedly to Fight off Bullies

(AP) A Hartford woman is facing charges for allegedly sending her 12-year-old son to school with a BB gun and a folding knife so he could protect himself from bullies.

Police say 38-year-old Sylvia Mojica has been charged with risk of injury to a minor. She is expected to appear in court on Friday.

Mojica allegedly gave her son the BB pistol and the folding knife to bring to school on Friday. The boy told school officials that he had the items in his backpack.

Administrators say the boy now faces a suspension or even expulsion. They are also investigating the bullying allegations.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/26/national/main6992970.shtml?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

[Taverner]

1. As much as I try, I cannot summon any outrage towards the mom

[hlthe2b]

2. Not if she had tried everything else...

While misguided, I can understand the desperation.

[Taverner]

3. She'd be better off signing up her kid for Krav Maga, or some other short order self defense

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Agree withthe concept, but KM is not really not that suitable for new starts

Very effective techniques, but IMO some seasoning is needed before teaching them.

[Taverner]

20. Understood - I don't know Krav Maga

Other than its a quick route to self defense, quicker than Kickboxing, Karate or TKD

[Vehl]

31. Krav maga might result in permanent injury though

That is one of the reason I'm against kids training Krav Maga. At least not until they have practiced a self-disciplining form of martial art like Karate.

A kid who knows Krav maga might do permanent damage to another if he has no self control.

[AlbertCat]

10. I cannot summon any outrage towards the mom

After all, it's her son's 2nd amendment right!



:sarcasm:


All either of them, and the bullies, see on TV and even in our government and elections is violence as a solution.

[gratuitous]

14. Yep, might makes right

And that's the culture we live in, where whoever applies the most violence to a problem is declared the winner. All praise to the High Church of Redemptive Violence.

I really had hopes that humanity could have progressed even a smidgen in the last few thousand years, but it's apparently not to be.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. I wonder how many times over how many years she's been reporting the bullying.

I wouldn't be surprised if this a long-term issue that the administration has conveniently pushed under the rug.

Since the bullies are so often the rich kids or the athletes, we must preserve that precious resource first. :eyes:

[SemperEadem]

5. it's a damn shame

that the school district has a policy of tolerating bullies and this mother believed that the only recourse left to her son was for her to arm him with weapons.

I think that this speaks more to the climate being fostered and accepted at that school than it says about her desperately trying to keep her son from being assaulted for no good reason other than to amuse a bunch of miscreants.

[MedicalAdmin]

6. School administrators and board suck.

They are the ones who allow this to go on, even promoting it by ignoring it in many cases.

A point was made here that the bullies are often the athletes, etc. Not always but often. We teach these kids that winning is not the most important thing - it is the only thing. WTF do we think will come of instilling that attitude in the impressionable?

Did the mom do the right thing here? NO. Weapons have no place in a school. But neither does bullying. I understand the impulse. Hurt my niece and you and I will have some "issues" to work out. Having said that I would strongly suggest that she enroll her son is some kind of martial arts and maybe attend classes with him. A gun or stick or knife can be taken away - but not so much with the ability to kick ass.

[WingDinger]

7. Im old now but, when my mom and I went to the principle, for an upper grader

throwing bricks at me, and spitting at me from the bus, he finally issued his sage advice, yaknow D@#$%, sticks and stones may break your bones. I politely thanked him for his time. Mom sadi BULLSHIT, that is no answer etc. She gave me permission to beat the holy shit outta anyone who threatened me in any way. And no dumbass fool coming down on me would get me in trouble with them.

So, started my career of beating the crap outta hundreds of punks.. And when stupid vice principles and idiot teachers who failed to protect me tried to step in, to tell me what is what, I told them to fuck off. I dont think they know how to deal with a good student that wails on bullies.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. Went through that with one of my daughters

Group attack and she was blamed for not accepting a beat down and dropping all of her attackers with various levels of injury. AP tried to come down on her but since it was off campus the district legal counsel would not let her. She finished the year on double secret probation and *NO ONE* every bothered her again.

[ThomCat]

35. Good for her!

I'm glad she was able to do that.

[KurtNYC]

28. I saw a body outline done in tape in the west village

on the sidewalk. And expected the usual message about how some gay man had been beaten there...

but the message next to it said "last night some would-be gay basher got his ass kicked"

Loved it.

[AnneD]

30. I worked in an elementary school once....

there was a punk kid that bullied way to many kids. One day a teacher came in and told me that he had just seen one of our really large, good, kind, and smart kid-with this bully in a head lock way laying the shit out of him.

"What did you do" I asked.

"Do about what" he wryly ask, looking at the ceiling.

I understood that reporting would have gotten the good kid in trouble. The bully had bitten off more than he could chew. While it might not have been an approved method to problem solve-the bully cooled his jets after that. The good kid with the gentle disposition still remained a good kid and was a real leader and friend to the other kids.

I have a soft spot for the good kids that take a stand against bulling and harassing less fortunate students. My daughter was one of those kids too. She didn't use her fists but she could cut a bully down to size with her tongue and shame bystanders into action. She really has a short fuse with kids picking on special ed kids (The apple doesn't fall to far from the tree in this case). Frankly, I never said much if she stuck up for others or herself, other than I was proud that she took care of others and stood her ground.

[yurbud]

8. if you shoot someone with a BB gun, you'll just piss them off.

Likewise, a knife doesn't scare people anymore until you actually cut them.

[Blandocyte]

22. Yes, but you'll piss them off 10 times or so

:evilgrin: and they'll run away mad.

[John Kerry VonErich]

9. Will we see another Columbine?

That was the motivation for Harris and Klebold

[mitchum]

13. That has been debunked; Harris and Kliebold bullied others, they were not bullied

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Where do you get that from. Its widely held there was a strong jock culture at the school

[mitchum]

17. David Cullen's exhaustively researched "Columbine" debunks lots of the suburban legends

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. Thanks, I'll look it up

[boppers]

36. Site:

http://www.davecullen.com/columbine.htm

FWIW, jock culture was a *part* of the problem, as was class culture, religious cultism at the school, general teen pressure, etc. They weren't bullied kids who snapped one day, it was an incredibly hostile environment, and their reaction was to try and destroy *everything* except for a few friends.

[woo me with science]

21. Was not aware of this.

Thanks for the reference.

[boppers]

37. Partially true.

They were bullied *and* they bullied others.

[DumpDavisHogg]

11. I fully support the mom in this story

I support her 100%.

[alp227]

12. A real solution? Sue the admins! n/t

[Odin2005]

23. As usual, the victim is punished for defending himself.

[crim son]

24. Unless the kid was bullied with weapons like BB guns and knives, I can't

support this. All three of my kids were bullied and all three of them received support and even instruction on how to defend themselves physically, plus promises that should the school administration get involved, we would be right there with them every step of the way. Only my oldest son ended up feeling the need to finally take down his main tormentor and he's never been tormented again. No weapons required other than his tongue and fists, and he wasn't a big kid at the time. If the boy was being threatened with weapons I might think differently, but I'd also opt for a completely different strategy involving the school, the bullies' parents, and law enforcement.

[slackmaster]

26. Are you thinking it's not "fair" for a person to be pre-emptively well armed?

Why do you think police officers carry batons and guns and pepper spray?

[crim son]

29. The kid is not an adult

and cops are always in danger of being threatened by somebody with a deadly weapon. This kid was not. Are you thinking it is "fair" for a kid to take, say, a gun to school? Because as you know it isn't guns that kill people, it's people who kill people, so what's the harm? Aside from the legal issue of course.

[slackmaster]

40. I think nobody except a qualified adult should ever take a gun to school

And I do not approve of the woman's actions in this case.

[iverglas]

41. btw

"Why do you think police officers carry batons and guns and pepper spray?"

To use, if necessary, in performing the duties assigned to them by the public, in the public interest.

I thought everybody knew that.

[iverglas]

32. that's because you are a normal person

Not a gun militant looking for an opening. ;)

It is precisely the involvement of weapons that has made low-level altercations more deadly in recent years.

"Pre-emptively arming" schoolchildren. What will the gun militants come up with next?!

[slackmaster]

25. I started carrying a large folding knife to school daily after a bully broke my hand

I was 15 years old at the time. I've carried a folding knife with me everywhere I go since then.

Nobody has ever physically fucked with me again.

[iverglas]

33. it's the magic folding knife protective forcefield!

Invisible, but works all the same.

:rofl:

[fascisthunter]

27. arming a bully

hmmmm... consistent

[auntsue]

34. camera?

Could she have gotten a conceled camera? or another student to help video the bullying? I hate the whole idea of looking the other way about bullying. It's gotta stop!

[boppers]

38. I used to carry a 1911 (that's a .45 pistol for non-gun folks), a fighting knife, and a chain...

...to high school. Tucson public schools in the 80's were pretty tough places. People were jumped and beaten/knifed in the hallways, just part of life.

If anything, I'd say the mom was *under*-arming her child, and providing weapons that are near useless for lethal circumstances, and could actually make the situation worse... In addition, a knife or a gun are only useful if a person has been properly trained in use, and only appropriate in specific circumstances.

Of course, if her whole point was not defense, but to send a message to school administrators, that she was willing to arm her child rather than see him continue to be bullied, she certainly found a way to raise alarms... with rather safe "non-weapon" weapons.

[iverglas]

39. I see the gun dungeon is still springing leaks

.