Two teens assault teacher after he confiscates one's iPod
By Paul Miller 
posted February 25th 2007 3:15AM
posted February 25th 2007 3:15AM
Sure, rag on NY iPod wearers all you want, but apparently there's no getting in between this Germantown PA highschooler and his iPod. Two students were arrested on Friday for assaulting their 60-year-old teacher Frank Burd, who confiscated it from a 14-year-old who was using it in his class. The kid returned later with an 11th grader, and they pushed Burd up against a locker, breaking his neck in two places. The good news is that Frank Burd's condition is stable and spirits are high. Unfortunately for the two students, their assault was caught on video, and they're going to be charged as adults. Frank Burd happens to be quite popular with the staff and students, which leads us to believe he doesn't make iPod confiscation a regular practice.
whats the difference between confiscating and stealing?
force kids to go to school and then force them to sign a paper giving up valuable possesions?
nazi's forced concentration camp victims to write letters to family saying they were alright
but that doesnt make things right
good day idfk,
first off, if you would like to have a semblance of respect about you, the least you can do is to keep your grammar check. typographical errors, i would understand, can be brought about by the intensity and spontaneity of the moment; errors which are quite forgivable and should not be demeaned by the overwhelming majority (whose sentiments, by the way, i am very much a part of).
with regards to your points of defense towards the actions of the two students who had beaten up their teacher, these are quite laughable and would not stand up even to a majority hardened criminals i would believe. don't you find some basic moral flaw in harming anyone? even if it was for something as acceptable as "self-defense"? any person will either hesitate or at least give an afterthought to such an action. You on the otherhand do not even care to think for one second that maybe there was something inherently insensitive, evil, to what these two have done. i earlier had said that, yes, even hardened criminals would be appalled by such things. i do not speak for its majority, but i do know of more than a handful that have done attrocities for which they are incarcerated for several life sentences (worse off, than these two students), and yet themselves would not do to a teacher, much less an old man. again, there are the basest of moral thoughts and actions.
if we further delve into your arguments and look into your claim of teachers stealing from their students, i will not deny that these do go on in schools. i however will argue for you to prove theft. and if there was an incidence of theft, is that reason enough for endagering the life of the offender? i believe most would agree that a normal person would say otherwise. most would recommend the offended party to file a grievance with a greater superior in accordance to the rules defined by the responsible authority (ex. principal, student rep, another teacher, counselor). i will also argue that regardless if there was any intention of theft by the teacher, he did initially have a right to confiscate the ipod from the student if he deemed it unnecessary towards the students learning. to constitute theft would be to go beyond school policies on confiscated items. now if you can prove that he had gone beyond confiscation and constituted theft, then i will somewhat be sensitive to your side mr. idfk, but still not sensitive enough to justify the unjustifiable act of harming someone for an ipod.
your argument regarding teachers molesting students? there is no room for this point in this discussion. although, yes, i do believe that people, who by trade deserve the respect we give to them, must in good faith live up to this respect. Those who do not, not only face the ire, but also wrath of society and should face the full justice of the law. unfortunately for you mr. idfk, the two students you tolerate, did not even make an effort to give that deserved respect to their teacher, which already places them in a bad light. following your argument and my conjecture on the law, as much as the teacher can be held liable for his actions, so too must all who live in society, so too must all people be held under the law. your argument of teachers violating our trust unfortunately is as much an offense against your own line of thought as it is a defense.
moving on to the argument of yourself being the best student in most of your classes according to your teachers is open for debate. why is that? you do not provide anything concrete to support your claim (which i am not countering, mind you, but only conceiving as doubtful) other than the "fact" that you claim every teacher you've had thinks you were the best student he or she has ever had. there is, however, one argument i can come up with with your claim: your english/grammar/language teacher. i believe that poor sould will be sorely embarassed by such arrogance given the weak and poor written argument you have written above.
if i were a teacher, i would give you a C with your grammar (i'll let you off with your spelling, which honestly, i shouldn't but what the hey). as a person, i'd give you an F for arrogance and insensitivity, not to mention your seeming disregard for the law and justice. as a techie, technology may be a way of life nowadays, more than simply a tool, but it will never replace our humanity no matter how you integrate it into our lives.
one should never attempt to bash someone about grammar or spelling when they themselves are at fault.........
i apologize for the typographical errors. i had gotten caught up in the moment. i do hope that my comment is clear enough to be at least o be well understood. again, i apologize for the typos.
Someone probably says there was violent video games on the iPod and they only get treatment as punishment.
>Tech^Cellfish,
>Someone probably says there was violent video games on the iPod and they only get treatment as punishment.
I was not aware that IPODs had the capability to even play games but then again, I have a 1st generation version that only plays music or can be used as an over glorified USB drive.
I love how so many commentors mock and ridicule each others' intelligence when we start stating differing opinions. And at the same time, they struggle to type out a proper post with some decent grammar/spelling/punctuation. On top of that, a crapload of comments don't make any sense because people don't know how to write a sentence... how sad... I don't care how intelligent you are in reality but as someone who communicates over the anonymity providing internet, you have to be somewhat mindful of the medium you're using: words put into sentences, typed into a computer. Use your friggin' brain and put the correct words into coherent sentences with some decent spelling and proper spelling of those DAMN HOMOPHONES. Why does it seem that no one in the English speaking world seems to know the difference between and anymore? Where the hell are these people learning their English? Literacy encompasses comprehension through conversation, reading AND WRITING.
Now... about this blog entry... wtf is wrong with people these days? As some commentors mentioned before, it seems like these kids along with a vast number of the general populace glorify themselves so much that they think everything is theirs and anything is allowed to attain that everything. If this device was stolen, by all means go and do all that is legal to re-obtain it. How is it that even though written rule, and more importantly common sense, is there, selfish people like this deem themselves above all else and do something so idiotic?
Much too many times do I see parents say to their kids "You are the best no matter what people say" when their kids are fokkin' up. It's great to motivate and build confidence in your children but what is this teaching? Do whatever you please since you're a god? This is why we have so many arrogant yet incompetent retards in the workplace as well.
They should throw these two kids in adult prison and let them fend for themselves with the lovely men in there.
They want to act like hotshots by almost killing a guy, then we should let the grown men in prison put them in their place. That'll teach them real fast that the world doesn't revolve around them.
I don't care if they're kids or not. Kids are less innocent these days and they're old enough to know better - their actions were clearly premeditated - and I feel absolutely no sympathy for them. Why would I? Why would anyone? If they're going to cause this kind of harm to another life, then they need to be tried and imprisoned like adults - that is to say, with the full burdens that anybody who knows better would have to face, which they clearly do. If they lose a part of their lives or all of them, then those are the consequences of their actions. They made their bed, now they need to lie in it.
@ b-rad
I can officially say I remember school. I remember it like it was 8:00am this morning. Probably because it was. I go to High School in Phoenix, AZ and they take them away all the time. They (teachers and/or administrators) can't take it away with out giving you some sort of warning. Even if it was the 1st day of school, the student knew better, and was risking it. The more and more I think about it, I think the student was just trying to find a reason to do it. That's besides the point. I'm saying, that the school has a constitutional right to confiscate if it creates a safety hazard, creates a disruption, disrupts school work, or violate the rights of others (Tinker v. Des Moines School District (1969)). It violates all four of those. Legally they are allowed to do that. Society, and I, for that matter, agree with it.
Just a note, if that teacher dies, even if by a medical mistake, those students get indicted with Felony Murder (same punishment as 1st Degree murder), and depending on that state, face a potassium chloride cocktail!
Kids don't have the respect we had when I was in school. Parents are afraid to teach their kids respect because most everything you do now can be considered abuse and kids today will run and tell if you look at them wrong.
Granted, there were no ipods, cell phones, etc.. when I was in school. Sometimes kids would get caught with a small radio with an ear piece to listen to a game or something that they would miss out on, but if they got caught it would be taken, they would be seeing the principal, and sometimes worse... I watched many kids slammed into lockers and hands slappped with rullers while I was in school, but we respected the teachers and knew that school was a place to learn, not escape from the teachers.
kids don't have the same right to have ipods as adults and yet they are being tried as adults?
I'm no fan of bad kids, which it clearly sounds like these boys are, but let's face it. You and I would get a lot worse than a broken neck if we came home missing $300+ dollars in the form of an iPod, and said "My teacher took it". The kids didn't buy the iPod, therefore they should not have it taken from them by anyone other than the person who purchased it in the first place. If a teacher has a problem with iPods, call the parent and have them take it from the kid at home the next day. It's not right to take it at that moment; same goes for cell phones. Technology is advancing but old people aren't advancing with it. They look at it all as high-priced toys. They aren't. That being said, the boys should NOT have assaulted the teacher; I'm just saying I can understand the thought process behind it, the fear, and acting out. tplay is right:
"whats the difference between confiscating and stealing?
force kids to go to school and then force them to sign a paper giving up valuable possesions?"
But I guess thats America for you.
Let me clear this up. The iPod in question was not being quietly enjoyed by Dante Boykin while the rest of the class was able to listen to their teacher. Dante was playing the music SO LOUDLY that the teacher could hear it from the front of the room and other kids were dancing to the music. Frank (the teacher) told Dante to just put it away. He would not. He told him again. Then he told him if he didn't put it away he would have to confiscate it FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS PERIOD, not the rest of his life. Other kids in the class were urging Dante to put it away, that he would get it back, but he wouldn't do it. He was given plenty of opportunity to save his precious ipod from being taken away from him. Dante was well aware of the rules. It's as though he were looking for it to happen.
Wow! 114 comments! All I can say is I'm glad I'm in a private school where class sizes are so small you'd actually get noticed if you were wearing earbuds and had music turned up. I'm a senior this year and really haven't had any "bad" teachers. There haven't been any problems with iPods in class either. Sometimes during free time, someone might listen to one behind a carrel in the library without getting noticed, but it's still against the rules.
Cell phones are a problem from time to time. The rule is that phones must be TURNED OFF in the building. I keep my phone off, but other people do not. Sometimes a phone will ring or vibrate in my calculus class and the student will casually reply "sorry" and turn the phone off. One time a phone vibrated louder than most phones, and we all thought it was funny. Some people imitated the sound periodically throughout class, and we had our laughs. The teacher added, "you sound like a wounded cow."
In my drawing/painting/advanced art classes, we're allowed to have Mp3 players while we're working. The biggest electronic problem is when idiot freshmen are playing online games in the computer lab during free time. The teacher that runs the lab will usually either freeze that person's screen (and they really think the computer's frozen, so they restart it and play the game again until it freezes up again), "lock" their screen, or walk up to them and tell them to "do something productive."
And I'm not going to reply to B-rad and isbn (or whatever their names are) because they have been pwnd badly enough. Nothing more needs to be said.
Typical of iPod users. You wouldn't see this from iRiver or Zune users. :|
Your comments: I don't condone the violent reaction that these kids had, and I don't
fault the teacher (it sounds like he did the right thing, which was
first tell the kid to put it away), HOWEVER...You people saying
"school is an environment for learning" are full of shit. I'm glad
you went to a good school. Unfortunately, there are millions of kids
out there that didn't and don't. For most students, there is no happy
positive learning and growing environment. Furthermore, many teachers
DO steal from the students. I had a teacher in 8th grade, for
example, that would take pens and mechanical pencils away from
students for, I don't know, clicking them too loudly. And then she
would use them. She did it to me once, so I just picked it up off her
desk on my way out of the class. I knew I was never going to get it
back if I left it up to her.My girlfriend tells me that a kid at her
middle school got a GameBoy taken away, but managed to get it back at
the end of the school year. There were new high scores with the
teacher's initials on the game.I was able to go to a private school
one year. Teachers there were pretty cool about letting you do things
when your work was finished. Unfortunately, the music teacher was
insane. I had a GameBoy out on a day when we were sitting in the
auditorium doing nothing (I don't recall why we had to be in there
that day, but that period was more or less a study hall because we
were unable to proceed with the class as usual). She took it away for
no reason in particular. Luckily my mother was the school nurse and
the crazy teacher gave it to her. Might not have gotten it back
otherwise.The truth is this: the school gets paid just for you to be
there. They have no right to take anything from you, especially
valuable electronics. Mr. Burd does not sound like a bad teacher, but
plenty of teachers out there are not as fair. The negative reaction in
the comments is because a lot of kids know that in their school, with
their teachers... if they rob you (let's not kid ourselves, that's
what it is), you're not getting it back at the end of the class.
School should not be a prison, and there should not be old,
burned-out teachers playing control games with the kids.
...Ignore the "your comments" at the top of my post there... had to copy+paste from the confirmation email to correct a mistake.
name one situation where it would be alright for me to take an ipod away from you
you can't put the power to take things away from someone in the hands of one person
http://trevaURL or email: trevadj@aol.com
The assault by the teens on Mr. Burd, should be of national concern. Why? Because all our children need to learn that violence hurts humanity! The repercussions of their actions is sad because they are being tried as adults and consequently will now have a criminal record that will effect their entire lives as adults. Teenagers need to understand that violent actions will profoundly have an effect on their educational opportunities and most definitely, will effect their ability to provide for their very own offspring because of their criminal record. I hope they read this. Very sad, they need to understand they have already effected the wellbeing of their futures but also the wellbeing of their children! I hope that God, in his almighty wisdom, will guide their paths and that Christ,in his divine providence,directs their paths. Amen!!