After a 9-year-old student said, “Brownies”, referring to the snack served in the class, William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood called the police. According to Philadelphia Inquirer, the call was made after another student reportedly misunderstood the remark and thought the boy was racist.
The mother of the child Stacy dos Santos said, “He said they were talking about brownies”. “Who exactly did he offend?” The event made her think of sending her son to a different school in the fall.
She added, “I’m not comfortable with the administration; I don’t trust them, and neither does my child, ” “He was intimidated, obviously. There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying, ‘Tell me what you said.’ He didn’t have anybody on his side.”
This event which hardly considered as criminal crime is one of the several reports received by the Collingswood police to look into school incident. This has sparked horror to some of the students’ parents.
Philadelphia Inquirer reported that on May 25 there was a meeting among Collingswood Police Department, school officials, and representatives from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. According to school officials and police, they were told to report any incidents that could be merit as criminal, including what Police Chief Kevin Carey called anything “as minor as a simple name-calling incident that the school would typically handle internally.” All cased should also be raised to Child Protection and Permanency, Carey added.
Previously, the state Memorandum of Agreement between school and police had only reported deemed serious incident, like the case involving drugs, sexual assault, and weapons. The May meeting has an important change on the procedure.
After the meeting, officers have been called five times per day. Teacher Megan Irwin said, “Some of it is just typical little-kid behavior. Never before in my years of teaching have I felt uncomfortable handling a situation or felt like I didn’t know how to handle a situation.”
To discuss the incident a meeting was arranged among the mayor, police and Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
According to Collingswood Patch, “In our discussion today, you and your staff made it abundantly clear that our recent meeting was to reinforce the applicability of the Memorandum of Agreement, but not to expand its terms,” Collingswood Mayor Jim Maley wrote in a letter to the prosecutor’s office.
Article Sources: The ShredNation/ Facebook, America Now, Philadelphia Inquirer and Collingswood Patch Photo Credits: Philadelphia Voice and Todays Parent
