Question for LEO's about a situation

[RANGER295]

I was going to post this in OT but figured I would get a bunch of responses from "keyboard commandos" with useless comments and advice. I think you guys are the most qualified to give me some advice.

My day job is a high school shop teacher. I left a water bottle with lemon-aid in it on my desk in the classroom which adjoins the shop. Half way through the last period of the day I took a drink from it and it was fine. After school I drank the last swallow's worth left in the bottle and noticed a strange aftertaste. It took me a minute to figure that someone had spiked it with Expo white board cleaner. The cleaner bottle was a few feet away and I compared the smells. I called poison control and they told me it might upset my stomach and give me diarrhea but that I would be ok and did not need treatment unless I could not hold anything down or had some other kind of violent reaction.

The principal and VP had left for the day so I called the principal on his cell, told him about it and that I want to meet with him and the SRO in the morning. I have it narrowed down to four students that accessed the classroom without my being in there including one that was in the classroom doing some drafting on a computer the entire period.

I assume this is violating some kind of law. I would think it would fall under an assault category of some sort. I was wondering if you guys could point me at the specific laws that cover this? How would you handle it if you were in my shoes. I work in a hazardous environment with the students and it makes me nervous that a student would do something like this. It ended up being relatively harmless but whoever did it had no way of knowing that the cleaner was not toxic. I guess I need to be more careful and lock things down but in the short term for tomorrow I want to have a understanding of the implications for when I meet with admin and LE. They have a way of trying to sweep things under the rug and not rock the boat.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and reply.

[constable]

already posted

[P5Ret]

Right off the top of my head this comes to mind. There may be other's but this would work.


347.
(a) (1) Every person who willfully mingles any poison or harmful substance with any food, drink, medicine, or pharmaceutical product or who willfully places any poison or harmful substance in any spring, well, reservoir, or public water supply, where the person knows or should have known that the same would be taken by any human being to his or her injury, is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, four, or five years.
(2) Any violation of paragraph (1) involving the use of a poison or harmful substance that may cause death if ingested or that causes the infliction of great bodily injury on any person shall be punished by an additional term of three years.
(b) Any person who maliciously informs any other person that a poison or other harmful substance has been or will be placed in any food, drink, medicine, pharmaceutical product, or public water supply, knowing that such report is false, is guilty of a crime punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, or by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year.
(c) The court may impose the maximum fine for each item tampered with in violation of subdivision (a).

[Bert Gamble]

I am not a police officer, and I cannot give you advice on the law, but I wonder if it could be a stupid kid prank? We know that this is dangerous, and in sufficient quantities, you could have been severely injured. I just wonder if if the kid was trying to hurt you, or was just a moron?

If it is the same as it was when I was in school a million years ago, the shop teachers were the kid's favorites. I had a shop teacher who was teaching us to solder, and me being a dumb kid decided to use my new skills to solder thumb tacks to an extension cord and run it from my English teachers chair to the wall socket behind it. The padded seat gave the perfect cover for my plan, and when she sat down, screamed, and jumped up, I was caught because I was the only one on the floor laughing.

I didn't want to hurt the teacher, and it was only years later that I learned that she could have died if it all went perfectly bad. I was just a stupid kid who didn't know better.

Sorry for the long rambling story, and I am sure you know your students well enough to decide if it was malicious or not.

Hope you do not get too sick.

Oh, the shop teacher ended up being the one who dispensed the swats. I deserved them, and never held it against him. Cool guy who knew how to make stuff.

[Slack Jaw]

Yes its 347

[RANGER295]

already posted

Right off the top of my head this comes to mind. There may be other's but this would work.


347.
(a) (1)

...

Yes its 347

Thank you guys.

I am not a police officer, and I cannot give you advice on the law, but I wonder if it could be a stupid kid prank? We know that this is dangerous, and in sufficient quantities, you could have been severely injured. I just wonder if if the kid was trying to hurt you, or was just a moron?

If it is the same as it was when I was in school a million years ago, the shop teachers were the kid's favorites. I had a shop teacher who was teaching us to solder, and me being a dumb kid decided to use my new skills to solder thumb tacks to an extension cord and run it from my English teachers chair to the wall socket behind it. The padded seat gave the perfect cover for my plan, and when she sat down, screamed, and jumped up, I was caught because I was the only one on the floor laughing.

I didn't want to hurt the teacher, and it was only years later that I learned that she could have died if it all went perfectly bad. I was just a stupid kid who didn't know better.

Sorry for the long rambling story, and I am sure you know your students well enough to decide if it was malicious or not.

Hope you do not get too sick.

I have had the same thoughts. In general I am the favorite teacher for the "ag mech boys" as they are known as they are known as on campus. I have done stupid stuff as well when I was in high school that I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for (and probably would have had I grown up today). Depending on the circumstances/who it is I am not necessarily looking to have the kid charged but at the same time if admin wants to just brush it off and give the kid a talking to or something like that, this can be used to point out the seriousness of it. The kid needs to be suspended and an example made to show it is a serious issue and make them think. There is one student in the four that it could be that I would not put it past him to do it maliciously and he is angry with me because I gave him a zero in his weekly score last week.

Edit: While I hear what you are saying, and have done a lot of stupid things in my youth, never would I have thought it a good idea to to put a chemical in someone's food.

And no I have not gotten that sick, I just have some acid reflux from it.

[ls2monaro]

No prosecutor in my county would touch that case without a lab analysis of the poisoned substance accompanied with blood work showing the poison in your blood, the expert testimony of a toxicologist, physician, independent witness, and surveillance video of the incident.

And if by the off chance you had all that evidence, the suspect(s) would get probation. Welcome to the California criminal justice system!

[RANGER295]

No prosecutor in my county would touch that case without a lab analysis of the poisoned substance accompanied with blood work showing the poison in your blood, the expert testimony of a toxicologist, physician, independent witness, and surveillance video of the incident.

And if by the off chance you had all that evidence, the suspect(s) would get probation. Welcome to the California criminal justice system!

Oh I realize that. I did not go to the doctor and get tested or anything. I told my wife last night that it would be almost impossible to probe without a confession or a witness. She asked about finger prints. I told her that would prove that he touched both containers not that he tampered with them assuming they could get good prints. My goal is to get the kid kicked out of my class and be made an example out of so that they all think twice before doing something stupid in the future. As I said earlier, this info is more so I can push the point of it being serious if admin tries to brush it off.

While I agree that no prosecutor would prosecute this, 347 does not require that anyone consume the substance just that the substance was put in something that a person would reasonably assume would be consumed. (a)(2) adds additional penalty if the substance is consumed or if it is something that could cause death.

[ls2monaro]

I wouldn't expect anything to come of it criminal wise. Administratively the school might suspend the kid but they would need one or more of the kids to confess to it.

Kids at my local high school steal the teacher's vehicles about once a week just for fun, hit the jack in the box drive thru in it, then post it on Instagram and Facebook. It's like an ongoing competition for them.

Even with video surveillance and social media posts, kids have never done more than a day or two at juvenile hall. No room for property crime offenders even for kids.

Kids don't even mind going to the Hall, they get to see their old buddies and usually get better amenities than their current living situation.

[RickD427]

You've got two different issues involved here: 1) Was the conduct a crime? and 2) If so, what can be done about it?

P5Ret gets credit for correctly identifying the most appropriate section of law to charge the offender(s) with. The offense is a felony, and makes it easier to pursue investigative leads than if the offense were a misdemeanor.

The real issue that I see here is in being able to identify the person responsible, and to hold them accountable. If your efforts have narrowed the field of suspects to four, then as many of three of them may be factually innocent (assuming that you're correct in your belief). Here are some points to ponder:

1) Looking at this mathematically, there is a 25% chance that any of the four "suspects" is guilty. That falls short of the classic standard of "Probable Cause" (something being more likely than not). That impacts the officer's legal standing to do thinks like arresting the suspects (useful for the collection of fingerprints and to facilitate an interrogation).

2) Was there a collection of evidence that would allow for evidence matching to any "suspects"? Fingerprints and DNA from the "Expo" bottle would be foremost here. But even if samples were collected from the bottle, there needs to be a comparison sample each suspect. Those can either come from a historical index of samples, or directly from the suspect (if the needed legal standing to collect a sample exists).

3) High tech evidence processing is expensive, time consuming, and often resource-constrained (only so many fingerprint checks and DNA tests can be done in a certain period of time). LE agencies and crime labs employ vetting protocols to help ensure that these resources are expended on the most deserving cases. If you case falls below that line, well - sorry.

4) School authorities are less restricted in their ability to manage student conduct, but they still need some basis to proceed against a student.

[Samuelx]

Sorry to hear about that OP, that's some bullsh1t right there! The so-called "future" of this county scares the crap out of me (the criminal, irresponsible, immoral, and just plain stupid, etc segments of our society have way more kids and way earlier in life than your normal decent responsible productive members of society and the ratio gets worse with each passing generation!). I hope it's a one time thing and karma kicks whomever is responsible so hard in the ding ding that they can't reproduce.

In the meantime, I hope a little humor helps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zTi3NzMhrA

[Slack Jaw]

Kids at my local high school steal the teacher's vehicles about once a week just for fun, hit the jack in the box drive thru in it, then post it on Instagram and Facebook. It's like an ongoing competition for them.

I wish I went there as a youth

[5150ds]

No likelihood of prosecution so I wouldn't waste the SRO's time with it. The school can bring the kids in and speak with them to see if one confesses (I doubt it). If they do the school can expell them. Better than what the criminal justice system will most likely do.

What came out of this is you learned a lesson about leaving your open drink in an unsecured classroom. I am sure you won't do it again.

[P5Ret]

Unless I'm completely misreading the OP intent here, I don't think he's looking for any type of prosecution of the kid. I think he want's to hammer home to the school admin the potential seriousness of the situation, in case they do the "kids will be kids" routine.

[scadvice]

You've got two different issues involved here: 1) Was the conduct a crime? and 2) If so, what can be done about it?

P5Ret gets credit for correctly identifying the most appropriate section of law to charge the offender(s) with. The offense is a felony, and makes it easier to pursue investigative leads than if the offense were a misdemeanor.

The real issue that I see here is in being able to identify the person responsible, and to hold them accountable. If your efforts have narrowed the field of suspects to four, then as many of three of them may be factually innocent (assuming that you're correct in your belief). Here are some points to ponder:

1) Looking at this mathematically, there is a 25% chance that any of the four "suspects" is guilty. That falls short of the classic standard of "Probable Cause" (something being more likely than not). That impacts the officer's legal standing to do thinks like arresting the suspects (useful for the collection of fingerprints and to facilitate an interrogation).

2) Was there a collection of evidence that would allow for evidence matching to any "suspects"? Fingerprints and DNA from the "Expo" bottle would be foremost here. But even if samples were collected from the bottle, there needs to be a comparison sample each suspect. Those can either come from a historical index of samples, or directly from the suspect (if the needed legal standing to collect a sample exists).

3) High tech evidence processing is expensive, time consuming, and often resource-constrained (only so many fingerprint checks and DNA tests can be done in a certain period of time). LE agencies and crime labs employ vetting protocols to help ensure that these resources are expended on the most deserving cases. If you case falls below that line, well - sorry.

4) School authorities are less restricted in their ability to manage student conduct, but they still need some basis to proceed against a student.

5) The chance that more than one of the suspects are involved.

Just thinking out loud here...