Better not say you're going to beat everyone at the sack race in P.E. class, Billy. That's a threat of mass violence.

I remember going to a daycare center where not only were toy guns not allowed to be brought, not even for action figures, you couldn't pick up a stick and use it as a gun and they would even put you in time out for a finger gun.

This is far stupider than that.

We have threat assessments at our elementary school but we go through MANY channels before police are involved. Like, is the threat credible? Is anyone fearful? Does the child have the means? Is there motive? Someone making a comment that says “because they’ll blow up” would be a freaking conversation about school appropriate language not arrest and suspensions, for ANYBODY but especially kids with documented disabilities.

Reporting it makes sense. Investigating if the threat was credible makes sense. If it is credible, a felony then makes sense. But if it isn't, a fine or misdemeanor is enough. Because I do agree that there should be some consequences to discourage how casually death threats and the like are thrown out these days.

But the idea that no tolerance rules that turn kids having outbursts (disability or not) into felons makes anyone safer is laughable. Making troubled kids unnecessarily lives harder is more likely to create more danger than prevent it.

Oh, basically the moment I've learned that many school shooters are autistic and I'm likely autistic, I started joking on that subject.

I mean, it (still) feels funny. Not that autistic people are braver (often seems the opposite), we just fear different things than NT generally. So what NT people (especially kids, especially in an environment prone to bullying) fear is not what we fear.

I call that kidnapping

His autism didn't spark fear...saying the school would blow up if anyone looked in his backpack sparked fear. He should not have been arrested but c'mon, if a kid I just met said that to me I'd call the front office, too.

he told his teacher he didn’t want anyone to look in his backpack [...] When the teacher asked why, Ty responded, “Because the whole school will blow up,”

Arresting him was overreacting. Perceiving his words as a threat was not

Was the kid black?

USA police have to be the most unprofessional on the planet, right? How do any of them have jobs...?

In the third world, they would not arrest this child and instead have a conversation with the parent.

My school experience was pretty much bookended by Columbine and Sandy Hook. We fogured shootings were something that could be solved, rather than the inevitable fact of life they are now.

A simple "what do you mean by blow up?" Would have avoided all of this. Especially when you know it's coming from someone who is autistic.

I'm willing to put a pretty big dollop of blame on the cops. An autistic kid says something without awareness of some of the context which is shown to have NO nefarious intent behind it, and nothing to show for it but a stuffed animal - and yet they slap the cuffs on anyhow.

But we'll find out they were at the next school shooters house 5 times and concluded that he wasn't a threat without any more investigation than talking to him.

The teacher had also known Ty for a single day. I really can't put too much blame on them, given the law and potential risks that are sadly too real in modern times.

The administration, however, were likely to know of his autism and probably could have handled things in a way that would have deescalated the situation with the cops (that they were required to call).

Not to say they are necessarily to blame (they don't want to lose their jobs or see jail time), and I wasn't there, but it seems like the whole thing could have been handled better from top to bottom.

It's their job to understand the conditions that kids have who are under their care. If they're too stupid to do that, they should be fired.

Looks like teacher did the right thing by getting someone from the office to handle it. Everyone after that is to blame