Thornton P. Knowles On His One Childhood Vacation

When I grew up, very few lower middle-class people in West Virginia went places on vacation. When I was twelve, three years before my father went out to our barn to hang himself, we drove up to Niagara Falls, New York. We spent one night on the American side in a five-bucks-a-day place called Al's Cozy Cabins. No TV, no air conditioning, and no shower. Not too cozy. Rather than stand around looking at a lot of water falling off a cliff, I wanted to go to the local wax museum. My father said no, we needed that money for gas. I don't know what I expected to see up there, but found the whole experience tedious. That trip was our families' first and last, and I'm still not a vacations person. I guess I never learned how to relax away from home.

Thornton P. Knowles

Thornton P. Knowles On Wiseguy Nicknames

In the heyday of the Mafia, a lot of wiseguys were given colorful nicknames. For example, there was Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, Al "Scarface" Capone, Tony "Three Fingers" Rizzocascio, George "Butterass" DeCicco, Peter "Horseface" Licavoli, and Sam "The Plumber" DeCavalconte. If it ever becomes custom to nickname the wiseguys of academia, we might get: Professor Monty "Man Bun" Lawrence, Dean Gibson "Gobbledygook" Sinclair, Associate Professor Peter "Power Point" Lucas, Dr. Henry "Hypothesis" Higgins, Assistant Professor "I Want Tenure" Thomas, and Chancellor Miles "Mission Statement" Barnes.

Thornton P. Knowles

Pedophilia: America's Hidden Crime Wave

     Anyone who follows the news regularly comes across stories about boys who have been repeatedly sexually molested by relatives, neighbors, mothers' boyfriends, teachers, priests, ministers, Boy Scout leaders, coaches, and youth counselors. These accounts tend to have the same narrative arc: following years of suspicious behavior and rumors of molestation, someone finally comes forward to report the crimes. After a plea bargained sentence, families of the victims sue the pedophile's school, church or institution, and if the offender is a public employee, the city or the state. Following this, local politicians and others call for measures that will protect future victims. But it never stops. Why?

     While we are familiar with the general profile of the adult male who preys on boys under thirteen, we have no idea how many of them are out there working in our schools, juvenile facilities, churches, and daycare centers. Dr. Gene Abel, an expert in this field, has estimated that between 1 and 5 percent of our adult population sexually molests children. If this is true, there are hundreds of thousands of them among us victimizing millions of youngsters. Because pedophiles are serial offenders who cannot be cured or rehabilitated, the victimization rates for this type of offense are through the roof. According to studies, before being caught for the first time, the average pedophile assaults 120 boys. Once released from prison, a vast majority of them reoffend. Since only a small percentage of pedophiles end up in prison, who knows how many children are victimized during the sex life of just one of these criminals?

     Although conscientious parents teach their children to be wary of strangers, most cases of pedophilia involve preditors who are either related to or acquainted with the boy. The most vulnerable targets are "at-risk" youths from dysfunctional families.

     Pedophiles flourish in our society because, in matters of criminal justice, we are taught to be careful with our accusations. No one wants to be part of a "witch hunt." Moreover, if you make a false accusation, you can be sued. Besides pedophiles, America is home to a lot of lawyers. According to the FBI, only between 1 to 5 percent of child molestation crimes are reported to the police. I believe it's more like one percent. According to one study of 255 cases involving students sexually molested by their teachers, in only one percent of these cases did the school district superintendent attempt to revoke the offenders' teaching licenses.

     Pedophilia is a crime of stealth, single-minded and clever offenders, frightened victims, and, on the part of people who should intercede on the child's behalf, denial. Pedophiles are often charming, hard-working employees who have ingratiated themselves into the community. Notwithstanding the increased awareness of this crisis, it will not go away. Unfortunately, there are certain social problems that cannot be fixed by a criminal justice system.

Thornton P. Knowles On How To Get Your Name On A College Or University Building

Yearly donations to America's cash-greedy colleges and universities is in the tens of billions. So, what do the big donors get in return for their money? They acquire paid-for immortality until even bigger donors knock their names off the dorms, lecture halls, cafeterias, football fields, gyms, classrooms, and research labs. The more prestigious the institution, the more money a rich narcissist has to fork out. There have been colleges and universities willing, for the right price, to change the name of the entire institution. In a small town, a local resident who had made it into major league baseball might get a street named after him. While getting a street in your name may not be a big deal, at least it's free and based on achievement beyond being wealthy. I can foresee the day when colleges and universities are so desperate for money, they will offer to name campus trees after people. The bigger the tree, the bigger the donation. So where is all this mortality-for-sale going? Here's a guess: The day will come when most college degrees are so devalued, rich donors will start paying to get their names off campus structures and trees. When that happens, maybe the names of rich narcissists will start appearing on trade school buildings.

Thornton P. Knowles

Beware of the Naked Guy

     In recent years, dozens of naked men high on meth, PCP, synthetic marijuana, or bath salts violently assaulted, murdered, and in a few cases, ate part of their victims. These hallucinating assailants shed their clothing because the designer drugs caused their bodies to abnormally heat-up. Police officers, after their taser guns failed to bring these rampaging, drugged-up zombies under control, had to shoot a few of them.

Abraham Luna: The Nude Nutcase From Tarpon Springs

     Police officers in Tarpon Springs, a Florida town of 23,000 in Pinellas County not far from Tampa, received a strange call at 6:50 Monday morning, November 26, 2012. Residents of a neighborhood near the Tarpon Springs Golf Course had seen a man running about with nothing on but a pair of construction boots. (The nude man was later identified as 30-year-old Abraham Luna.) By the time patrol officers rolled into the area, Luna, a resident of Tarpon Springs, was gone.

     The following day, at 4:17 in the morning, a Tarpon Springs officer tried to pull over a nude man driving a white van at high rates of speed on U.S. Route 19. The officer discontinued his pursuit of Luna when the van crossed into Pasco County. As a result, Luna escaped arrest.

     Fifteen minutes after eluding arrest in Pinellas County, Abraham Luna pulled into a 7-Elven store along Route 19 in Holiday, Florida. The nude man walked into the store, and without provocation, started shoving, scratching, and punching a male employee. "What's wrong with you?" the clerk exclaimed.

     "You asked for it," Luna replied.

     When a second 7-Eleven employee told Luna to leave, the naked assailant strolled out of the store and climbed back into his van. But instead of pulling back onto the highway, Luna gunned the vehicle toward the store, stopping just before crashing into the building. He next got out of the van, and tried to open the door of a car that belonged to one of the store clerks. Unable to steal the employee's vehicle, Luna climbed back into his van and drove north in the southbound lane.

     The brief police pursuit of Luna on Route 19 ended when the van sideswiped a patrol car driven by a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy. Luma jumped out of the van and ran, but was quickly apprehended by a deputy who jolted him with a taser device.

     The Pinellas County prosecutor threw the book at Luna, charging him with aggravated assault, aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer, reckless driving, aggravated fleeing to elude arrest, driving with a revoked license, and violation of his probation.

     Luna, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2007, was incarcerated in the Pinellas County Jail in Land O' Lakes, Florida. After his arrest, Luna explained his nudity to reporters by saying it was a shock tactic that gave him an advantage in fights.  Fortunately, the tactic of being nude did not protect him against being shocked by the police.

Coco Bennett: Nude Man With Samurai Sword

     The San Jose police, on New Year's Day 2013 at eight in the morning, received a call regarding a man, later identified as 29-year-old Coco Bennett, carrying an assault rifle in a residential neighborhood. Bennett climbed into a pickup and drove out of the area before the police arrived.

     San Jose officers came upon Bennett's truck a few miles from where he had been seen with the assault rifle. As they approached his truck, the nude driver exited the vehicle carrying a large, samurai sword. "You're going to have to kill me," Bennett said.

     Instead of shooting Bennett, the officers at the scene called in San Jose's Crisis Intervention Team. Following a two-hour stand-off involving 32 police officers, the naked man ran toward a nearby fence. When he tried to climb the barrier, Bennett fell and dropped his sword. Officers took this opportunity to take him into custody. From Bennett's truck officers recovered his AR-15 assault rifle. Had he come out of his truck armed with the AR-15, Mr. Bennett would have been shot to death.

     After being treated at a local hospital for minor injuries, Bennett was taken to the Santa Clara County Jail.

The Naked Connecticut Church Intruder

     The day after Coco Bennett's arrest in San Jose, a nude Gary Pohronezny burst into the St. James Catholic Church in Killingly, Connecticut. The 41-year-old from Brooklyn, New York barged into the church at one-thirty in the afternoon, interrupting a religious service attended by adults and several school children. A member of the congregation called 911, and after a brief scuffle, officers took the naked man into custody.

     Charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with police, Pohronezny ended up in a hospital in Putnam, Connecticut where he underwent psychiatric evaluation.

The Naked Home Intruder

     A Miami homeowner, on January 3, 2013, was awakened at five o'clock in the morning by the sound of his barking dog. The man causing the commotion, a naked home invader named Jeffrey Delice, was choking the pet. When the 20-year-old intruder tried to bite and choke the resident of the home, the homeowner shot him in the foot. Delice, high on drugs, was charged with a variety of offenses including burglary, assault, and resisting arrest.

     Note: Since I couldn't find any news updates on any of these men, I assume these cases were handled outside of the criminal justice system.

Most Murder Cases Aren't That Interesting

Sherlock Holmes would have no interest whatever in most of the 22,076 murders reported in the United States in 1994. [That's double today's murder rate.] Only 20 cases involved poison or explosives. Only 22 were by narcotics overdose. Some 78 murders were classified as involving rape. Just 15 involved prostitution and commercialized vice. Sniper attacks make good television, but only two such homicides occurred in the United States in 1994. About 1.7 percent of the murders involved romantic triangles. Although 1,157 of the murders were classified as juvenile gang killings…the police often overdo their coding of gang involvement. Thus, if a store owner gets shot in a robbery and the offender seemed to be a gang member, many police departments count that incident as a gang murder rather than something more plain. Gang members may be highly criminal, but that does not mean that most of the crimes they commit are of, by, or for the gang itself. Members do most crime for themselves.

Marcus Felson, Crime & Everyday Life, Second Edition, 1998

Thornton P. Knowles On Stag Flicks, Pornography, and The Speed Of Cultural Change

I remember when filmed pornography wasn't mainstream entertainment. Now they're called adult films. Back in the day, a short, beer-bellied guy with greasy hair and a neck tattoo would come to the party with his reel and projector. The grainy black and white film usually featured a middle-aged, paunchy woman having sex with a masked, hairy man. My first and last stag film viewing made me feel like a peeping Tom. Maybe that was because pornography itself was forbidden, clandestine and against the law. The way it was presented was also obscene. Perhaps the most shocking feature of the modern era is the speed and severity of cultural change. It's disturbing to think that what is now generally considered to be socially taboo could someday become mainstream, acceptable behavior.

Thornton P. Knowles

Thornton P. Knowles On Small Town America

By choice, I've never lived in the city. I wouldn't like the noise, the smell, the cost, the traffic, the pollution, the crime and the inconvenience of urban living. I like the less hectic, slower pace of a small community and consider myself fortunate to have enjoyed the benefits of small town life while it still exists. The day will come when America's small towns will fall into decay or be consumed by suburban sprawl. I'm glad I won't be around for that.

Thornton P. Knowles

Dr. Marian Antoinette Patterson: The Employer From Hell

     In 2018, Dr. Marian Antoninette Patterson, a 1995 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, practiced medicine at the Family Medical Practice in Valdosta, Georgia. In February 2018, the Georgia Composite Medical Board suspended Dr. Patterson after members of her staff complained of being threatened by her of physical violence.

     According to one of Dr. Patterson's employees, the doctor threatened to cut this employee from her throat to her private parts. Another member of the doctor's staff reported the doctor's threat to cut off her head and roll it down the hallway, but not before she brought the employee's children in to witness the beheading. When terrified employees said they were calling 911, Doctor Patterson allegedly promised that they would be dead before the arrival of the police.

     An employee of the Family Medical Practice alleged that Dr. Patterson kept her from leaving the office by grabbing her arm. Dr. Patterson was also accused of throwing a reflex hammer at an employee. The doctor also, according a complainant, pulled her medical diploma off the wall and stomped on it.

     On March 5, 2018, the Georgia Medical Board suspended Dr. Patterson's license to practice.

     Valdosta police officers, on April 25, 2018, booked Marian Antoinette Patterson into the Lowndes County Jail on three counts of terroristic threats and one count of false imprisonment. Shortly after being taken into custody, the suspect posted her bail and was released. 

The Dr. Michael J. Davidson Murder-Suicide Case

     Dr. Michael J. Davidson, the director of Endovascular Cardiac surgery at Boston's Brigham and Woman's Hospital, after graduating from Princeton University in 1992, earned his medical degree from Yale University. He interned at Duke University Medical Center and in 2006 joined the staff at Brigham. The 44-year-old cardiovascular surgeon also taught at the Harvard Medical School.

     The doctor and his wife Terri, a plastic surgeon, lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts with their three children. Dr. Davidson had celebrated his 40th birthday by running in the Boston Marathon.

     Stephen Pasceri, 55, lived in a two-story colonial style home in Millbury, Massachusetts with his 63-year-old wife Teresa. He worked for the Waters Corporation, a company in Milford that manufactured specialized laboratory equipment. Known in the community as the "Church Guy" because he regularly knocked on doors to raise money for the Millbury Federated Church, Mr. Pasceri was considered a friendly, happy-go-lucky man. He and his wife had raised four children.

     On November 15, 2014, Mr. Pasceri's mother, Marguerite E. Pasceri, passed away after being treated at Brigham and Woman's Hospital. According to reports, Mr. Pasceri blamed Dr. Davidson for her death.

     At eleven in the morning of Tuesday January 20, 2015, armed with a .40-caliber pistol he was licensed to carry, Mr. Pasceri walked into the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center located on the second floor of the building across the street from the hospital's main entrance. He asked a member of the staff if he could speak to Dr. Davidson.

     A few minutes after Mr. Pasceri entered the Cardiovascular Center, following a loud exchange of words, Stephen Pasceri pulled out his firearm and shot Dr. Davidson twice at close range. He then used the gun to end his own life.

     At ten-forty-five that night, Dr. Davidson, after undergoing emergency surgery, died from his wounds.

     Dr. Davidson's sudden, unexpected death at the hands of an unlikely killer sent shock waves through Boston's medical community and stunned people who knew Mr Pasceri. Because hospital shootings are relatively rare, the hospital's entrances do not feature metal detectors or security personnel to screen visitors and staff who might be armed.  

Thornton P. Knowles On Golf

Someone once said that a round of golf was a good walk spoiled. Except for people who do it for a living, golfers don't even walk anymore. You hit the ball, yell fore! then climb into your buggy. There are pursuits and goals in life I'll never understand. But I suppose diversity of tastes and interests makes it all a little more interesting. Golf. Why not?

Thornton P. Knowles

The Woman in the Freezer

     In July 2010, a family member found 80-year-old Maria de Jesus Arroyo unconscious in her Boyle Heights home in Los Angeles. At the White Memorial Medical Centre, an emergency room doctor declared Arroyo dead from a heart attack.

     A few days later, Arroyo's body was taken out of the hospital freezer and transported to a funeral home where it would be on display. When the mortician zipped open the body bag, he found the corpse uncharacteristically face down in the postmortem container. Moreover, the frozen woman's nose had been broken, and her face was covered in cuts and bruises. Family members who had seen Mrs. Arroyo just before the ambulance rushed her to the hospital hadn't noticed any injuries. They assumed that hospital personnel had in some way mishandled the body.

     Mrs. Arroyo's husband and eight of their children filed a lawsuit against the White Memorial Medical Centre alleging abuse of corpse. In December 2011, at a hearing pertaining to the suit, Dr. William Manion, a forensic pathologist hired by the family, testified that Mrs. Arroyo had not died of a heart attack.

     It was Dr. Manion's opinion that Mrs. Arroyo had died from asphyxiation and hypothermia. In other words, hospital personnel had put a body bag containing a live person into the hospital freezer. Mrs. Arroyo had regained consciousness inside the bag and struggled to get out. In so doing, she broke her nose and cut and bruised her face. If this were true, this woman had undergone a terrifying death. Instead of saving her life, hospital personnel had killed her in a most horrible way.

     In May 2012, the Arroyo family attorney, Scott Schutzman, upgraded the lawsuit against the hospital to medical malpractice. (If Mrs. Arroyo had in fact died in the hospital morgue freezer, some of the people responsible for her ending up there could also face charges of negligent homicide. According to Dr. Manion, this had not been a natural death.

     In 2013, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge threw out the Arroyo lawsuit because the one year statute of limitations for malpractice suits had run out before the case had been filed. The Arroyo family appealed that decision.

     In March 2014, justices sitting on the California 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned the lower court ruling. The one year statute of limitations did not start running in this case until the plaintiffs learned that Mrs. Arroyo might have gone into the hospital freezer alive. According to the appellate judges, the family had no reason to suspect Mrs. Arroyo had died after being placed into the body bag. The Arroyo lawsuit, therefore, could move forward.

     No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the 80-year-old woman's unexplained, mysterious, and suspicious death. 

Dark Humor

     A friend of mine once told me about a guy who murdered his first wife and put her in a freezer. He had her in a storage locker and his second wife stopped paying the bill for it, so the contents were auctioned off, and one lucky buyer purchased a freezer with a dead woman inside.

     Gruesome certainly, but I could easily imagine a darkly comic story about such a situation.

Robin Hemley in How to Write Funny edited by John B. Kachuba, 2001

Wayne Carter: NJ Man Throws Intestines at Police

     At ten o'clock Sunday night, May 20, 2012, police in Hackensack, New Jersey responded to a report of a 43-year-old man who threatened to kill himself. Wayne Carter had barricaded himself in the bedroom of his house. Two officers kicked open the bedroom door and found Carter crouched in a corner holding a 12-inch knife. The officers ordered the disturbed and distraught man to drop the weapon. Instead, he stood up and began stabbing himself in the abdomen, legs, and neck.

     The stunned police officers, in an effort to keep this man from killing himself, showered him with two cans of pepper-spray. Immune to the pepper-spray, Mr. Carter reacted by throwing pieces of his bloody tissue and intestines at the officers. They backed-off and called in the Bergen County SWAT team.

     Members of the SWAT team overpowered and disarmed the bleeding and weakened subject. Paramedics rushed him to a nearby hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He had stabbed himself 50 times, and was listed in critical condition.

     According to his family and friends, Wayne Carter had a history of mental illness and had abused drugs. He had also been arrested for assault and resisting arrest but has not been charged in this case. His bizarre behavior, coming as it did in the wake of the face-chewing case in Miami, and the college student's cannibalism in Maryland, has made people wonder where the epidemic of drug use and mental illness is leading this country.   

FBI: Tarnished Badges

     During J. Edgar Hoover's reign as the fourth director of the FBI (1924-1972), I don't believe a single agent committed a crime serious enough to send him to prison. During the bureau's entire history, I don't think a female agent has been put behind bars. Since 1972, however, dozens of male agents have gone from investigators to inmates. At least four have been convicted of murder, and several have been put away for espionage. Many others have been imprisioned for perjury, theft, and even child molestation.

Special Agent Darin McAllister and the Root Of All Evil

     After growing up in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, Darin McAllister earned a degree in divinity from Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. At age 26, he moved to Los Angeles where he became a staff minister at the West Angeles Church of God in Christ in south LA. His wife Judith, a gospel singer, became minister of music.

     In the early 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department actively recruited African American officers in an effort to improve its relationship with the city's minority population. In March 1991, the Rodney King beating led to race riots in the city. McAllister joined the department that year as a patrol officer. In 1996 he applied to the FBI, was hired as a Special Agent, and assigned to the Los Angeles Division where he gathered street gang intelligence as an undercover agent.

     Seven years later, in 2003, the bureau transfered McAllister to the Nashville Resident Agency out of the Memphis Division. McAllister moved to Tennessee with his wife, three children, and a profit of $236,000 from the sale of his house in California. With that money, and mortgage loans from several banks, McAllister purchased, fixed-up and rented out several duplexes.

     The FBI agent/real estate investor was doing quite well until the housing market crashed in 2008. McAllister lost tenants and fell behind in his mortgage payments. His loans were called in, he couldn't pay, and the banks foreclosed. In 2009, after he filed for bankruptcy, bank examiners discovered that McAllister, when he had applied for the mortage loans, had inflated his personal income by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

     In May 2010, a federal grand jury indicted McAllister of wire fraud, false bank declarations, and other banking fraud related offenses, 19 counts in all. In December of that year, in a U.S. District Court in Franklin, Tennessee, a jury found McAllister guilty of several counts of mortgage fraud. The judge sentenced him to four years in prison, and fined him $675,000.

     McAllister's attorney appealed his client's conviction, claiming that McAllister was duped by shoddy real estate appraisers and loan officers.

     People have gone to prison for crimes a lot worse than McAllister's. He lied, and picked the wrong time to get into real estate. Had he been a member of congress, no problem. But he was a FBI agent, and he should have known better.

     Today, the FBI and the Department of Justice is in the midst of a scandal involving dozens of alleged crimes, most of which are against America's most cherished principle: democracy. It could be argued that the FBI is at the lowest point of its history and my never recover from its breach of trust with the American people. As a former FBI agent who has followed and written about the history of the bureau, I regret saying this.

The Toy Gun, Gun Image, Gun Facsimile and Gun Gesture Hysteria in Our Schools

     Zero tolerance generally equals zero discretion and good sense. However, if there is one zero-tolerance police we should have in our schools it should be a ban on idiot teachers and administrators. That, of course won't happen. If it weren't for public education and the government, where would these fools work?

     It won't be long before some neurotic kid approaches his teacher with a disturbing confession. "Ms. Fox," he says in a trembling voice, "I had a bad thought. Last week, while in your classroom, the image of a gun crept into my head. I am so sorry. It will never happen again. How many days will I be suspended?"

     "It depends," Ms. Fox replies. "Was it an assault weapon?"

December 2012: Tamaqua, Pennsylvania

     A seventh grade student at the Tamaqua Middle School in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania formed his hand in the symbol of a gun and pointed its finger-barrel. He aimed his .25-caliber appendage at a fellow student. The Pennsylvania State Police were called into the case to, among other things, determine if the "shooter" had said "POW!" If he didn't make the muzzle sound it was probably because he was pretending to be firing a handgun with a silencer. (Just kidding.) Police said the boy will be charged with disorderly conduct, and suspended from school. (Not kidding.)

December 2012: Chickasha, Oklahoma

     A five-year-old elementary school student was suspended for a day after he made a gun gesture with his hand. The offender pointed the nonexistent weapon at another student. Had the other kid gestured first, the student in trouble might have acquired a pretend student attorney and claimed self-defense.

January 2013: Trappe, Maryland

     School officials at the Marsh Elementary School in Trappe, Maryland punished two 6-year-old boys with suspension for "shooting" each other with imaginary guns and bullets. In a game of cops and robbers, they were using their fingers to replicate firearms. (If I were running this school I'd only punish the kid pretending to be the robber. What do they have against cops in that school?)

January 2013: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

     A South Philadelphia elementary school student was chastised in front of her class for coming to school armed with a piece of paper crudely shaped in the pattern of a handgun. Students made fun of the girl with the gun-shaped piece of paper, calling her a "murderer." I would advise these kids to be careful; this paper-toting kid might come to class one day with a big sheet of paper in the general shape of an assault rifle, or an Army tank.

January 2013: Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania

     A 5-year-old kindergarten girl in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania was suspended for threatening to shoot one of her playmates with her Hello Kitty gun, a toy in the general shape of a firearm that blows soapy bubbles. School officials characterized this as a "terroristic threat." While unregistered, the semi-automatic bubble-gun had been purchased legally by a kid with no criminal record or a history of schizophrenia. Moreover, the girl had not brought the weapon to school. She was simply talking about something she planned to do at home after school. A real lawyer jumped into the case and got the girl's ten day suspension reduced to two. The lawyer is now fighting to have the girl's "record" expunged. If anything needs expunged, it's the idiots and fools at the Mount Carmel Elementary School.

January 2013: Modesto, California

     A 17-year-old Modesto high school student was suspended three days after making gun gestures with his hand. Witnesses reported that this student was not only pointing his finger, he was moving another finger in a trigger-pulling action. Oh my. To compound this kid's offense, he also raised an umbrella in a aggressive rifle-like gesture. If I had a school-aged kid, I'd tell him to leave his umbrella at home, and keep his hands in his pockets, or holsters.

January 2013: Hyannis West, Massachusetts

     A 5-year-old boy at Hyannis West Elementary School on Cape Cod got into big trouble when he used lego bricks to build a crude toy handgun. Because he was a repeat offender--the kid had been punished for making a gun gesture with his hand--a written warning was placed into his file. School officials told the boy that if he commits the "crime" a third time, he will be suspended for two weeks. Let's hope this little menace doesn't hook-up with the Hello Kitty girl. We don't need another Bonnie and Clyde on our hands.

 January 2013: Sumter, South Carolina

     A kindergartner was expelled from Alice Drive Elementary School in Sumter, South Carolina after she brought her brother's toy Airsoft gun for show and tell. The girl is not allowed to be on school property, even when accompanying her parents picking up her siblings. She has been assigned a home-based instructor from the school district.  While Alice Drive Elementary School is a safer place, school administrators are worried about the safety of the home instructor.

February 2013: Florence, Arizona

     A freshman at Poston Butte High School in Florence, Arizona was suspended because he had a background picture of an AK-47 on his school desktop computer. It's a good thing the kid didn't have a photograph of an atomic mushroom on his school computer. The entire state would have been on lock-down.

February 2013: Loveland, Colorado

     A second grade boy at Loveland, Colorado's Mary Blair Elementary School was suspended for the terroristic act of pretending to throw a nonexistent hand-granade at a nonexistent target. He was pretending to be a super-hero saving the world. Next time, to save himself, the kid should learn to lie. Grenade? What grenade? I was pretending to toss roses at my wonderful teacher.