Go down and look at your water heater. Go ahead, we'll wait. On the side you'll see what looks like a valve that is never used. It's a pressure valve and it's purpose is to let water out if the pressure in the water heater becomes so great, the tank might explode. Better to release water than have shards of the tank hurtling through the house.
A high school is a pressure cooker. You have all those hormones coursing through the kids, they're all cramped together having to obey the system imposed on them, and on top of all that the school is also trying to teach them. The kids are in a system where they have virtually no power, and that leads to a desire to rebel.
And so we need to have pressure relief valves. A kid streaking at a football game is a harmless prank that lets all the students enjoy a moment of thumbing their nose at the school administration. It's not just ok, it's needed. If all actions are treated as serious legal breaches, then we get instead serious physical damage done to the schools rather than harmless pranks. BVSD needs to learn about appropriate response.
What they should have done was chase the kid - and fail to catch him. By catching him the BVSD administrators did not show that their authority cannot be challenged (clearly what was driving them), but rather they showed that their judgment sucks. Hey guys, grow up - try to be more mature than the kids.
Then we have how they caught the kid. First we had the school administrator who tackled him lying on him for quite a while afterwords. Do we need to worry that this grown man found it necessary to stay in that kind of contact with a naked minor for that long? (Seriously, what is with that guy?)
Second, they they kept him naked for quite some time after catching him, and kept him out there in front of all for quite some time. Clearly this was their showing all the students that they had won and mortifying the child in the process. In addition, if the "crime" of the kid was to expose himself to everyone, then shouldn't the BVSD administration face the same charge for keeping him out there naked in public?
Third, we have the biggest failure of BVSD security that evening. A student on the BHS side fired paintballs at the FHS side. One hit a girl in the cheek. Two inches higher and she would have been blinded in one eye. Security didn't stop it, security didn't get the student shooting the gun. So the serious event that night was ignored by the Keystone Cops while the innocuous thumbing of the nose at authority was not. Talk about screwed up priorities.
And of course Boulder's "Finest", the Boulder Police Department (motto: Since we can't solve serious crimes, let's overreact to minor ones), had to show that they could blow it as well as BVSD.
The boy faces a class-one misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure, Boulder police Sgt. Pat Wyton said Saturday. The charge carries fines ranging from $500 to $5,000 and/or a sentence of six to 18 months in jail.
Are you kidding me? 50 people bike naked through town and the police just direct traffic (yes, the BPD in that case actually had the appropriate response), and for this they're talking 6 - 18 months in jail. The appropriate response was to take the kid home to his parents and that's it. Even talking about charges shows the police have the judgment of a grapefruit.
And who's that in the background running to catch up saying "let me join the screw up express?" Why it's the Boulder Daily Camera who published the child's name (no link to article on purpose). The Camera properly does not publish the names of 17 year olds who kill others due to drunk driving because they are minors. But apparently streaking is cause to do so. So now, whenever this person applies for a job and the prospective employer Googles them - they get this story. (Yet apparently could not find time to write about the kid shooting paintballs and almost blinding a student.)
By the way, having a daughter who goes to Fairview and attended the game, I knew who the kid was, and his parents, hours before the Camera published it. And I chose to not write about it even though it would have been a "scoop" due to who the parents are. Congrats Heath Urie, you wrote something a blogger found unethical to write.
The only person in this whole thing who acted in an age appropriate manner was -- the kid who streaked. BVSD handled it in the worst possible way, which is to be expected. The Boulder Police Department over-reacted while ignoring the serious crime, which is standard operating procedure. And the Daily Camera made a two mistakes.
As to BVSD in your ongoing quest for respect - why not concentrate on the 30% of the children you are failing to educate. Because, to be honest, we don't give a s#%t if you catch a streaker. But we do care that you are failing miserably at your job of educating all of our children.
