Two of Three '07 Decatur Schools' Weapons Felonies Occured at Elementary Level
Decatur Metro | March 27, 2008The AJC recently used a February “incident” where a student brought a gun to Renfroe Middle School as a jumping off point to talk about promoting “safer schools” around Atlanta.
A little chart included with the story detailing gun felonies for school systems showed three weapon felonies in the Decatur school system in 2007. Well, after I got passed the fact that Gwinnett had a higher gun felony total than DeKalb (and yes, I am aware that Gwinnett is a larger school system, but its still surprising) I wanted to know more about these 3 incidents in Decatur.
Well, the AJC didn’t specify where the data came from, so I turned to old reliable Google. Within a few clicks I found the site. From there I clicked on “Decatur City” and found this.
So as you can see above, those three cited felony weapons charges was the total extent of the crime reported in CDS in ALL of 2007. And looking back to 2006 there were NO incidents reported. Looks pretty good to me.
But then I noticed a breakdown link. And it showed this.
Uh…of the three felony weapons charges filed in 2007 within CDS, two were at the elementary school level!?
I was surprised and thought you might be too.
Any parents out there with details on these “incidents”?
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Don’t have further details but do have a sneaking suspicion that these additional felony weapons may not be of the gun/knife variety. With the current wave of “Zero Tolerance” policies, some pretty unlikely “weapons” have caused suspensions ’round the nation lately. Anyone remember the Tweety Bird nail clippers? This is a stick up!
Like you, though, I’d love to know if these other two are gun-related like the Renfroe incident. As a parent of an elementary schooler, I haven’t heard anything about them.
Good point Scott.
If nail clippers or scissors (aside from the Renfroe incident) are the extent of CDS’ problems, I’d say that’s pretty impressive.
We’ll have to wait and see if the devil is once again in the details.
You can be pretty sure that these 3 items are not of the nail-clipper variety. The reference is clearly to “Felony Weapons” charges. You may get suspended for carrying your nail clippers or a very threatening and over-sized toothpick … but the incident will not be classified as a “Felony.” These are not to be taken lightly and are, in fact, most likely illegal weapons such as firearms or prohibited knives. Wish it weren’t so …
This has been a hot topic among parents of CSD kids. The grapevine says there was not a gun at Renfroe, but a scare, and that the AJC got it wrong when it said there were felony weapons charges. (Don’t know if AJC was based on police report but I can easily believe AJC got the facts wrong.) The story goes that someone reported a gun in a locker, there was a lockdown and search, search yielded no results. Again this is just grapevine info, but interesting.