This is the story of Ethan Chaplin, who back in April was twirling a pencil in his seventh grade classroom in Vernon, NJ. One of the class bullies saw an opportunity to be a jerk and yelled: “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie.”
Rather than demonstrating any sort of common sense, the teacher apparently had a panic attack and reported him, which resulted in a two-day suspension. Here’s what Vernon Superintendent Charles Maranzano had to say about it:
“We’re responsible for their mental and physical health and safety and security. When a student misbehaves or displays actions that are non-conforming or don’t meet our expectations, it causes us some concerns.”
I guess I don’t understand what schools are like these days, but the classes I grew up in were filled to the brim with misbehavior to the extent that a twirling pencil would be seen as a positive indicator of student interaction. Somehow, we all survived.
As if that part of the story isn’t bizarre enough, Ethan wasn’t allowed to return to class until he underwent a psychological evaluation in which he was forced to strip and give blood samples that caused him to pass out (sounds a lot like how police in New Mexico force anal probes on citizens for no reason).
Amazingly, the saga manages to get even worse. Just today, we find out that New Jersey is threatening to take Ethan away from his father. Incredibly, the state is claiming that the prior psychological evaluation wasn’t sufficient and more testing needs to be done. Since his father Michael is pushing back, the loss of custodianship has been threatened. Absolutely insane.
Here’s a must watch short video from PIX11 News on the incident:
This Huffington Post article from early April was the source of much of the information in this post.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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