LaShun is not ruined for life, BUT an arrest entry has been made, so he has a “file since” age 16. “Early Onset”. If this is all that ever happens to him that’s great. But he is now in a different table of statistics because he has such an arrest at 16.

It’s a myth that juvenile records don’t follow the criminal around.

16 year old criminals can be ordered to register as sex offenders for life, and other registrations. 16 year old criminals can get STRIKES – I see blacks being sentenced on juvenile strikes (yes, blacks are most of the criminal court calendar in urban areas) to serious prison terms for even minor felonies. This is less common in Oakland (due to strike policy in the Bay Area) and more common in other counties around Northern CA (who enforce the 3 strike law to the hilt). Many Teen criminals also forfeit their gun rights. As if all this isn’t enough, teens under 18 can be tried as adults under certain conditions. This is a pity sometimes because no-one explains to them what criminal law is or how it works (vicarious liability!) The so-called sealed teen records now appear on adult DMV and Criminal computer files and when attempting to travel to Canada and the EU, people can expected to be confronted with their records at customs and turned back of the foreign customs officer doesn’t like what she sees. Canada blocks admission all the time for DUI’s and other crimes (you have to apply for a Minister’s Waiver before attempting to enter Canada if you have any such record).

16 year old criminals begin to forego reference letters because good teachers with a reputation will not push them for work and school opportunites that come open later.

And lastly, many government jobs – such as peace officer jobs – have full access to data on arrests in the teen years. I have one person I provided a reference for who went through a severe background check for intelligence industry clearance in the WA DC area. There are well over 15,000 people working with security clearances. He makes triple what a young man typically makes at his age (try $65k a year for duties that include emptying wastebaskets as well as his career job). The $$ he makes including the OT assignments are predicated on his clearances since no one without them can set foot on the campus he works on and they are very hard clearances to get (routine and random polygraph exams, no contact allowed w foreign nationals, no foreign travel w/o advance permission, etc). They use the younger people for some janitorial duties as OT.

LaShun is well on his way to being disqualified for all kinds of interesting things which he wouldn’t have thought of anyway but I could have steered him into. Some of the interesting things a young man can do deselect for any adverse police contact like getting Tasered fighting a cop.

I’d prefer that LaShun’s public school have kept his rear in a class seat and covered such material so that LaShun might have had a clue how to conduct himself in public – especially in the presence of a Cop. Alas, that’s not the way the schools work today.

One of the reasons I address the child as a child is that the child is still eligible for JUVENILE COURT. We don’t normally hold 16 year olds criminally liable for their crimes as we do adults because we know how susceptable they are to bad parenting, bad schools and immaturity in general (as shown in this case). When they grow up, say after age 25, they may still become law abiding and tax paying Americans.

You people who insist on describing “LaShun” as a man are doing so because you actually believe, in addition to all people being created equal, that children are the same as adults. For example you likely believe children have a right to a sex life, etc. That type of nonsense is pushed in the ghetto public schools – children have “rights” of adults. Which is why we see these hormonal adolescents taking it to the streets over something that is none of their business. They have been taught to think this way without fear of consequences. This (bad) school carefully avoids giving them meaningful consequences but, darn, you still have that problem of the horses in the street…

Keep it up, Cranky Teacher. You and people like you will get these black children unemployed, battered, VD ridden, addicted and imprisoned. If they were taught the way I was – and most of my generation was (regardless of race) – you wouldn’t have today’s mortality rates today for black 15-25 year olds.

And I don’t mind getting racial at all. LaShun and people like him are not considered valuable enough to discipline by white liberals and their goofy black leftists. Middle Class White Children are considered smarter and more valuable so their schools don’t normally let them run in the street. That’s what is going on here and at OUSD. “LaShun” will probably get patted on the head for this.

Congrat’s LaShun, you now have a rap sheet at 16. We call this “early onset”. It puts you in a different statistical box. You can forget about certain career paths that at this point in your life you don’t think are important, but pay well. You have narrowed your prospects. Do you think your lefty schools will tell you about it? They won’t.

Yes, this student deserved to be tasered. He became BOLD and tried to confront a policeman. He resisted. Thus, the policeman had a right to put the student in his place.

And before I receive any negative comment about this (I’m sure I will), I’d just like to say that if a white student were to do this, then I would still ABSOLUTELY stand by what I just stated. This is NOT a matter of race, skin color, or privileged schools over poorer schools, as the first commenter so clearly thinks. It is a matter of SAFETY. END of story.

However, I agree that this is a good conversation — the first I’ve seen on this blog — so I’d love to try and stoke it a bit further.

We all have ideas about what’s right or wrong with schools, cops, kids, etc. Those opinions reflect our experiences, our political views, our analysis of human nature, etc. I just think we shouldn’t be quite so wedded to them.

Bashing the Oakland School System is pointless — it’s like walking about to a homeless alcoholic and saying, “You’re a loser.” NOBODY who thinks about these things is happy about the outcomes in this school district (or nearly any other school district that serves mostly poor people.)

But to overgeneralize is to dilute truth until it is undrinkable, like a watery coke after the ice melts. If you actually spend your days with teenagers, teachers, parents, and the rest, you find that there is an incredible range in the maturity levels, qualities and behavior of all participants in this muddle.

Nextset is telling us these spoiled babies should all be locked up in a fortress for their own protection until the magic age of 18, respecting authority like the “good old days.” As if age is the best indicator of maturity! Consider that in traditional societies, teenagers start and run families.

The reality is that these kids are already survivors and, as has already been pointed out here, are making grown-up decisions every day in the absence of parental support. I have many students, both successful and not, who live alone in apartments with cousins or siblings or in group or foster homes. Many of my students have jobs that are their primary means of purchasing clothes, school supplies and the rest. Some work at Safeway or movie theaters well into the night.

If they are then making decisions about how they want their school and community and nation to be, it is ridiculous to belittle them for it.

I bet you would prefer it if he were referred to as man eh? Then it would not sound as heinous and as egregious as it is.

Ban Tasers Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-tasers-from-police

You just don’t get it. No I don’t trust the cops, I don’t trust the DA, I think John Burris does a public service (and the kids involved here might want to at least consult with him, especially before any more “demonstrations”. I do think the cops and law enforcement are highly predictable so I have little problems with them at the moment. They are not going to save anybody, they are only a clean up crew for the dead bodies in Oakland.

You miss the point about my problem with children running around during school time playing Martin Luther King – or being encouraged to.

These children have been conditioned by somebody to act out on their own without acting with their parent’s or in concert with adult authority. That put them out on the street where they could get run over by the horses.

The difference between prison bound, VD ridden, unwed mother ghetto trash and those who make it in this world is Judgment, Planning, and a sense of timing. I believe the Oakland Schools has totally failed their students (who are largely black) because OUSD pushes a liberal “it’s all about you” agenda instead of the opposite. Incidents like this at the age range given here is the result. The more insidious results we see in the graveyards and prisons. The silly comments from the students to each other are classic and they will not survive in the economy thinking this way.

Yes I see a connection between this nonsense and the students being unable to pass the telephone test or verbal standardized tests. They are so full of self esteem they are reckless and the school helped make them this way.

Regardless of Race I expect better deportment from OUSD students and it’s just not going to happen with the current crew in charge. The orthodoxy running the place is mainly interested in keeping the black folks happy which is the last thing they should be doing. If that school system did it’s job the students would be hanging on by the fingernails and would have really accomplished something at graduation instead of being un-hirable.

Sorry I’m not a ray of sunshine on this topic. I am angry about this thing happening also. These kids are canarys in the mine for a lot of problems, much of which the Schools and the Tribune are keeping under wraps. If the schools did their job, regardless of any family problems – the OUSD students would wear better.