A school district and local prosecutors in Texas are refusing to drop charges against an 11-year-old who was held in solitary confinement.

Timothy Murray lost his father earlier this year and had been asking his principal for counseling when she called in the police

  • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    104·
    11 months ago

    Data from Brownsville ISD seen by The Observer showed its officers made 3,102 student arrests between May 2021 and Nov. 2023. Nearly 60% of those were on felony charges and 76 of those kids were in elementary school.

    What the everliving fuck is wrong with these people?

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
      35·
      11 months ago

      It’s Texas. They’ve NEVER been afraid of letting everyone know just how big of pieces of shit they are.

    • HiddenLayer5English
      2·
      11 months ago

      As an aside, when do you think the US, supposed leader of the free world and self proclaimed champion of human rights, banned using the death penalty for children? As soon as the declaration of independence was signed? After the civil war? After WWII? After the cold war when they were literally accusing the Soviets of executing children?

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child

      In 2005, 25 U.S. states allowed for the execution of juvenile offenders. This ceased after the 2005 Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons, which found juvenile execution unconstitutional as “cruel and unusual punishment”. The decision cited the [UN Convention on the Rights of the Child] as one of several indications that “the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty”.

      Which makes this earlier quote from the same Wikipedia page especially ironic:

      Some Americans oppose the CRC with the reasoning that the nation already has in place everything the treaty espouses, and therefore it would make no practical difference.

      Yeah, the US has always had a terrible track record when it comes to the judicial system and children (and adults mind you). Currently, the US is one of the few remaining countries that still regularly sentence minors as adults despite having an entire judicial system specifically for minors. Them putting kids in solitary confinement is about as unsurprising as it is disgusting.