Boy, 11, Suddenly Released From Jail After Prank (Sling Shot story update)

[The Straight Story]

Original Thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=252295

Boy, 11, Suddenly Released From Jail After Prank

POSTED: 5:22 pm EST February 20, 2007
UPDATED: 2:00 pm EST February 21, 2007

TAVARES, Fla. -- An 11-year-old Lake County boy was released from juvenile detention Tuesday night. He was arrested for allegedly hitting a classmate with a homemade slingshot at his school.

The Tavares Middle School student is charged with a felony for playing with a homemade slingshot he made from a balloon, a rubber band, and a milk jug. Kevin Cottle was put in jail on Friday and was originally scheduled to be behind bars for at least three weeks, until a hearing.

But Cottle was released unexpectedly Tuesday night, after his mother spoke to Eyewitness News, saying the whole incident was being blown way out of proportion.

The sheriff's office considered the pellet he fired a deadly missile and charged him with a felony.


The slingshot was made up of a balloon, a rubber band, and the top of a milk jug. Plastic pellets, like those used in an airgun, are put in it and it's used as a slingshot.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/11065827/detail.html

[Kutjara]

1. So kids with slingshots are felons now?

If Opie was a kid today, he'd be on death row.

Sounds like some typically literal-minded "peace" officers doing what they do best. When will legislators learn that they need to write laws in language that can be understood by monkeys, because that'll be who's enforcing them?

[Sequoia]

2. Opie, Timmy, and that blonde boy with the stripped shirt who

terrorized Mr.Wilson.

[Kutjara]

3. Yeah, that last kid was a real menace.

I'd throw away the key on him.

[Twillig]

4. Bart too.

Bart Simpson, non-voter.


Is everything a felony now?