You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.
A Baltimore County, Md., fifth-grader got a visit from the police after his teacher called to report that she had seen a BB gun on the wall behind the student during a class video call.
The boy’s mother, Courtney Lancaster Sperry, a Navy veteran, is warning other parents about a lack of privacy during virtual classes after her son was targeted by a teacher who saw what she thought was a scary-looking gun hanging on the wall of the boy’s bedroom.
“While my son was on a Zoom call, a ‘concerned parent’ and subsequently two teachers saw his properly stowed and mounted Red Ryder BB gun and one other BB gun in the background,” Sperry wrote on Facebook. “He was not holding them and never intentionally showed them on video. In fact, he was oblivious that they could even be seen in the background.”
After the teacher reported the gun, the principal, Jason Feiler, decided to call the police to report the guns and ask that the home be searched.
The principal and the teacher cited a rule stating that students may not bring guns to school and claimed it extended to virtual classes as well, Sperry said, adding that the school handbook does not address rules for virtual learning at all. Besides, “he did not BRING anything to this meeting and he is in his own home,” she said. “They were simply in the background in our home, safely stowed in a room behind a closed door, with no ammunition (if you can even call it that).”
The 11-year-old in question is a Boy Scout, pursuing the rank of Eagle Scout, and is an “outdoors / all-boy kind of kid,” his mom said. “And as his parents and by way of legal rights, he is allowed to own said guns.” In addition to the BB gun, she said her son is training in archery and enjoys shooting his Airsoft gun.
Sperry was, understandably, shocked when police pulled up in front of the family’s home.
“I had no idea what to think. I’ve never been in any legal trouble whatsoever. I’ve never had any negative encounter with law enforcement,” said Sperry. “I had no idea. I really didn’t know what to think.”
“So, I answered the door. The police officer was…very nice. He explained to me that he was coming to address an issue with my son’s school,” the mother told Fox Baltimore. “And then explained to me that he was here to search for weapons, in my home. And I consented to let him in. And then I, unfortunately, stood there and watched police officers enter my 11-year-old son’s bedroom.”
Oh, there’s an issue with your son’s school, all right.
“The officers that responded were appalled at the call and even commended the set-up that my son has for his toys and commended him also on his respect and understanding of the BB guns,” Sperry wrote on Facebook.
They were “appalled,” you betcha. Which did NOT stop them from barging on in anyway and tossing your home for an item that is in no way, shape, or form illegal, please do note.
“The officers were more than nice,” she wrote, “and though they did not have a warrant, I have always been taught to not only comply, but had nothing to hide and allowed them to look wherever they wanted to.”
And comply you did, which was the exact moment you freely gave up your liberty and your rights forever.
But hey, we’re Amerikans, right? It’s in our nature to comply, to obey, to bend the knee and submit to authority. In the land of the “free” and the home of the “brave,” we believe everything they say and do as we’re told. Right?
This story is appalling at every level, with every participant thoroughly disgracing themselves.
Update! What he said.
There is a litany of excuses, to the effect that these were “only BB guns,” and were “properly stored,” and so on.
The fact is that if they had been fully operational AR-15s dangling from the walls with loaded magazines, this illegal intrusion would have been no more justified, either by the insane educrats, or the complisiant coppers.
First off, what, precisely, was the law that was broken? What was the crime that these garbage teachers observed?
And what, had the naïve parent not consented to the police entry without a warrant, would the cops have had to present to a judge in order to get a warrant?
Everybody involved here is an idiot. The teachers are malignant idiots for presuming that their writ extends into private homes simply because they are connected to a computer housed in such homes.
The cops are idiots for not telling the teachers to FOAD.
And mom was an idiot for allowing the coppers entry in the first place.
Nobody involved could be said to have covered themselves in glory here, and that’s putting it mildly indeed. Bill links to another all too similar, and perhaps even worse, story—a one-two punch that pretty much serves to confirm just how thoroughly broken this once-great nation really is.
Open the schools? Hell no. Shut ’em down, burn the buildings, plow the grounds, salt the earth, start over fresh. This is way too big a mess to straighten out any other way.
- Entries
This is, of course, on top of teachers complaining that due to Internet classes . . . parents might overhear what the teachers are saying. That, for some reason bothers some teachers.
Wonder what they might be trying to hide?
“Wonder what they might be trying to hide?”
Everything.
Never let a LEO search your home without due process.