‘Free The Banana Man’: Autistic HS Student Handcuffed, Suspended After Football Game Stunt
- Posted on September 20, 2011 at 5:06pm by
Christopher Santarelli
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An autistic 14-year-old student was handcuffed, put in a police car, and suspended 10 days from school for charging the field during halftime of a high school football game in a banana suit. MyFoxDC has video of young Brian Thompson pulling off the prank:
While Thompson was apprehended, he was not officially taken into custody. And now his mother, Tavia, is puzzled as to why Colonial Forge High School would suspend Thompson for 10 days:
“Thompson says it was a harmless prank. He was trying to be funny and entertaining. His mother says the school’s principal thought he was creating mayhem.”
Students wore “Free The Banana Man” t-shirts at school Monday that they say were confiscated. They further alleged that those who wore them were ordered to attend school on Saturday as punishment.
A spokeswoman for Stafford County schools told MyFoxDC that they don‘t comment on individual student’s actions or discipline arising from those actions. The spokesman did indicate that there is an appeals process for all discipline recommendations.
The incident has caught the attention of some who think the police and school overreacted. The website Gawker called it a “harmless stunt” and gave treated it with heavy sarcasm:
Yes, at least Thompson—an autistic teenager with musical talent and a playful sense of humor—wasn’t incarcerated for his totally innocent prank that made people laugh. That’s where we are nowadays, America—being glad when kids avoid being arrested for doing absolutely nothing wrong at all.
Apparently the wise officials at Colonial Forge High School, where Thompson is a student, believe that running in a banana suit is disruptive and can lead to “mayhem.” Although this video footage doesn’t show any of the adolescent spectators in the stands declaring a revolution, taking hostages, or burning down the stadium in response to Thompson’s prank, it also doesn’t show what they were thinking about (forming a flash mob).
The New York Daily News reports:
Brian Thompson said he plans on protesting the school’s decision.
“Tomorrow I plan on going to school with a sign that says ‘Free Banana Man’ and another sign that says ‘Banana Man needs his education too,’” he promised.
What do you think?
(H/T: Gawker)
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patriotone
Posted on September 22, 2011 at 11:46amLocal issues dealt with locally. The Federal Government is not limiting this young mans free speech. This is not a First Amendment issue, it is a local issue best handled by the community. Unless, of course, you like Big Brother in which case you don’t mind involving the Feds in even the most minor issues. If you want the court to rule, and set more wrongheaded precedent, on this boy’s right to dress as a banana then you obviously have a need to be mastered and ruled from above. I’ll pray for you all.
Report Post »Quasimofo
Posted on September 22, 2011 at 9:20amCONFORM seems to be the message of the day at that school.
Report Post »plot4
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 6:35pmWhat I want to know is where ca I get a “BANANA MAN” outfit. I’m only 66 years old, why can’t I have some youthful fun.
Report Post »db321
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 11:19pmPLOT4 – I would pay too see that – Go for it. I’m in on youthful spirit.
Report Post »TxMadMac
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 3:46pmI think the people in charge are more mentally challenged than the autistic kid. Control what needs controlling. that was harmless fun for crying out loud.
Report Post »scorpion1
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 1:44pmHMMMM, being from the area this happened I do not recollect reading about it in the local “RAG”. I see the principal, Female has a PHD. I guess that stands for “Piled High and Deep” this lady needs to get a life. I would go as far to say that if this had been some big athlete nothing would have happened… Anyway “FREE THE BANANA MAN”
sCORPION1
Report Post »jerrygar
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 10:59amDo the police ever say “No…we won’t arrest ” ? These are the same types of cops who rounded up the Jews for deportation in the ghettos of Europe. ” Just doin’ my job ! ” What a bunch of brain dead robots & clones.
Report Post »jessieH
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 10:11amHave we lost our sense of humor, completely? “Free the Banana Man!”
Report Post »mobynowak
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 10:03amThis is why we have regular school board elections: to remedy these problems and purge the schools of idiots. Don’t like zero-tolerance? Run for the school board and hire a new principal or superintendent.
Report Post »SREGN
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 9:57amPublic schools operate as tyrannical bureaucracies. Threats to their tyrannical authority are dealt with harshly, while student on non-gay student violence is minimalized and whitewashed. Brutal bullying by those on the football team helps to reinforce the general environment so they receive a slap on the wrist for slamming nerds into lockers. As long as they’re not gay nerds, of course. The big problem is that school answers to the state, not the parents. School Boards have become rubber stamps for state edicts, and the state has become a rubber stamp for the fed Dept Of Educational Tyranny. Kids rightly view the schools as prisons, and teachers and administrators as brutish guards. This could easily change with the voucher system since schools would have to compete for students. Schools that abuse children like Banana Boy would soon be left empty.
Report Post »BJColter Country Music Iconoclast
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 8:16amWow, I wish I’d thought of that in high school. Definitely worth ten days in the hole.
Report Post »Troubled
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 7:55amHigh School zero tolerance has turned into institutional child abuse here in Southaven MS.
Report Post »They punish children in a major way for minor issues and hide behind their rules, while allowing teacher to systematically abuse the children however they want.
ionic
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 8:06amYet another reason we home-school in Southaven, MS.
Report Post »melmatmic
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 8:27amThe primary reason schools have instituted zero tolerance policies is that it frees the administrators from having to make any decisions or taking any resonsibility for their actions. So an A student that acts out one time or makes one innocent mistake gets the same punishment as a habitual offender because “we have a zero tolerance policy.”
Report Post »drybackinpi
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 7:37amIt‘s OK to be a ****** but if you’re a slow kid trying to be norman it’s off to the clink, does anybody else see a problem here?
Report Post »yougottabekidding
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 7:50amIt’s a good thing they caught this perp and punished him. People could be going into grocery stores across this country creating mayhem by destroying bananas.
Report Post »Some people just ask to be punk slapped ! Educators my butt !
Hopefulone
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 6:09amThe police need training if they are to attend High School events so that they don’t grab kids and shove them in a cruiser while they go through their Barney Fife routine. At least they figured out there was no crime.
Report Post »Unfortunately the principal, Karen C. Spillman, has had lots of training, with a “PhD” in Education (which, if you read Virginia Tech’s curriculum for the PhD program looks more like a certificate program than a real philosophical adventure deserving of “Doctor”). She isn’t as smart as the police. She had time to reflect but apparently not enough upstairs to accomplish the task. Now she is depriving a child of education, putting a black mark on his record, and taking away from his future–for a funny prank that did not hurt anybody. Of course, the Stafford school system will side with their own (standing up for the unwise adult, the phoney-baloney degree, and the union, over the playful child and, ultimately, the education of students).
10-32inIdaho
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 9:55amThe police are not to blame. If a person is willing to sign a complaint they are sworn to make the arrest, even if they do not agree, justice is supposed to be blind. Maybe if he was having sex with the teacher during the halftime show everything would be ok. The local parents should be paying attention to who is on the school board and VOTE them out. Votes count especially when you do not cast one. Kids now days are carrying guns at school, and they suspend the autistic kid for trying to make people laugh at a harmless prank. My country is in trouble. You are misguided with your stance on the police- put the blame on who deserves it.
Report Post »likwidlizard
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 5:03amThe communists that run the schools are trying to indoctrinate kids that they should have no kind of recreation or fun and that they should obey everything like a brainwashed robot. I would NEVER let my kids go to a public school, EVER.
Report Post »Drive_it_like_u_stole_it
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 2:20amFree the Bananna Man! It is my firm belief that the school and the police acted stupidly….
Report Post »Isaiah52021
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 1:59amMy daughter calls me on her last day of middle school (8thgrade) asking permission to do a prank at school, my response, doing cost me any money, later I get a call from the vice principal, I’m wanted down there immediately. When I get there, there is about half a dozen kids covered in chocolate syrup, ranch dressing mix…they apparently made a slip amd slide down the hallway out of chocolate syrup and salad dressings. The school wanted to suspend then for the first two weeks of their freshman year which would have cost them their freshman year. I raised a stink, I told them to let the punishment fit the crime, they already mopped up the hallway, no damage was done to anything but their clothes, we settled on a four day work detail at the school over sumner break. Schools are so quick with punishing to the extreme, that kids aren’t allowed to be kids. I had no idea what their plan was, but I knew my daughter, and I knew she would not cause harm, our damage someones property. When we left I did inform her that you try not to get caught doing the prank and standing there covered in chocolate was a bit obvious. Things like this are just silly, the school tried to make it sound like vandalism and life endangering, until they where called out on their extreme overreaction, they would have been fine costing these otherwise good students their first year of high school….Free Banana-Man, what did he harm?
Report Post »TH30PH1LUS
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 5:37am“Suspend” is the one-size-fits-all reaction. Actually using brain matter to form punishments that fit the crime is too exhausting.
On the other hand, I really feel for teachers & admin who not only have to occasionally discipline young people – but GET NO SUPPORT FROM PARENTS.
When I was a kid in school, I received corporal punishment (swatted with a paddle) from the principle. When I got home, I GOT IT AGAIN from dad with the belt. My parents stood with the admin and got involved in the development of my character. I’m grateful they did.
Now, the parents ignore or even combat the teachers attempts to discipline.
Report Post »noline
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 12:39amBase upon this, how many times would you have been arrested as a kid, and what effect would that have had on your perception of Authorities?
Report Post »Patriot12
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 12:14amWhy dont they go handcuff and deport some of those brown people running around dressed and acting like illegals. That would make more sense.
Report Post »noline
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 12:40amtroll
Report Post »Talmid of Yeshua
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 2:34am@NoLine,
You are the only troll here.. troll. And a lib troll at that.
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 7:57amWhat he’s saying is they can arrest an autistic child pulling a harmless prank, but let all the illegals go to school on our dime. I agree……I had to provide a birth certificate, proof of address (utility bill) and I don’t remember what all…shot records….to get my kid in school. What do they show? just that they have an address?
Report Post »Brewskie
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 11:34pmThis school sounds more like a prison camp to me.
Report Post »ThoreauHD
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 11:29pmWould they have arrested and suspended him if he was a muslim in a burka?
Report Post »stumblemouth
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 11:33pmYour post is right on the money. If he would’ve been dressed as a muslim, the PC police would hold him up as a brave multiculturalist. The young man would be MSLSD’s new poster child.
Report Post »Legal Immigrant
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 11:23pmAutistic?
Bah.
Useless eater. Why protect them? Protecting useless eaters is un-American and takes up valuable resources, produces co2 and other waste. No place for them in American society! Abort in the womb! They are not Aryan pure. Freaks of nature I tell you!
Gaia does not approve of them! They must be sacrificed on the altar of the Goreical!
/sarc
Report Post »noline
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 12:41amSo many trolls here
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 8:06amMy first thought was troll….but apparently you didn’t catch the sarcasm note at the bottom. he’s feeding the liberal line, tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Report Post »Firebrand
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 11:22pmWhat a slippery situation those police are going to be in. Cowardly, if you ask me, just plain yellow. Probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he had tried it in the day-o. Although jail isn’t too bad, they have peanut butter jelly time. Always a treat. Bad news that he’s been put on ice though, as evidenced by the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE
I go to the original source.
Report Post »toto
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 10:49pmUnbelievable stupidity on the part of the school and the police. Is there absolutely no common sense anymore? Or sense of humor?
Report Post »ProPatriaVigilans
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 10:48pmStudents and parents who think the school went too far should have a “Free Banana Man” protest in front of the school. I would show up for that if I could, these schools are crazy today with their punishments. Nowadays the things I did in high school in the mid 80′s would get you life in prison. High school is supposed to be fun, enjoy it before you have to move out and get a job and start acting like an adult.
Report Post »just happy
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 11:29amor maybe HOPEFULLY NOT acting like the adults involved in this fiasco
Report Post »borismolly
Posted on September 20, 2011 at 10:46pmOne thing I agree with Herman Cain about – America has lost its sense of humor.
Report Post »AJAYW
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 7:59amI agree -
Report Post »Troubled
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 10:33amand our children have lost all rights and unfortunately they then loss all respect when they see adults openly abusing children and getting away with it.
Report Post »just happy
Posted on September 21, 2011 at 11:31ammany things to agree with herman about!!
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