Earlier last week, an incident occurred in Wisconsin where a 14 year old girl was arrested by police officers after she was reported to the police by her school teacher for texting on her phone during class.
After the girl was caught texting by her teacher, she was requested to hand over her phone, but then refused to. Instead, the girl argued back and continued to text during her class. Frustrated at the situation, the teacher ended up calling the police, who then came to the school to question the girl. After repeated denial of ever having a phone, officer Jeffrey S. Griffin, noticed that the girl had her pant zipper undone. This lead officer Griffin to believe that the girl hid the phone in her pants.
Officer Griffin then requested for a female officer to come on location for a physical search. After a frisk down, Officer Paula Roberson retrieved a Samsung Cricket cellphone from "the buttocks area" of the girl. The girl then laughed at the situation, but was then arrested for lying to the police about not having a phone, as well as lying when the officers attempted to ask for the girl's phone number.
After examining the phone, Officer Roberson found that the girl had used the phone during class to send a text message to her dad, and the phone itself belonged to her dad.
The 14 year old girl was charged with a misdemeanor with a bail of $298 and a mandate to appear in court. The girl was not allowed to go back to school for several days, and would be charged with trespassing if she was found to be on school grounds during her suspension.
Do you think the teacher, officers and school went too far for a texting incident with a 14 year old girl? Or do you feel that justice was rightly served? Has technology gone to the point where things like SMS texting during school is considered criminal?
