Absolutely Unacceptable': Blaze Readers React to Dad Arrested After Objecting When School Says He Must Wait to Take His Children Home

TheBlaze posted a story earlier this week about a father, Jim Howe, who was arrested while trying to pick up his child fromSouth Cumberland Elementary School in Tennessee. (Don't forget to look at the follow-up piece here, too.)

Image source: YouTube raw video

Resource Officer Avery Aytes told Howe he had to wait due to a new policy requiring parents to wait in a line of cars to pick up their children.

Howe was on foot and was arrested when he demanded the school let him get his child.

Here’s what some readers had to say about the incident, which was caught on video:

CapnCrumbles32

These people legitimately believe that your children are not yours! They believe that primary ownership belongs to the government. That’s why they teach them an agenda which is contrary to the beliefs held by many Americans. That’s why they send social services to snatch them away and feel they can hold them in school, as long as they want. It's why they will deny you the right to take your own children home and have you arrested for simply disagreeing with them. Oh and one last bit…they steal all of your hard-earned money to fund these operations and expect you to thank them for it.

This officer is behaving foolishly. This country is turning into a dangerous place to live.

I went to public school, but my children are being homeschooled. If they attend any institution it will be a private Christian school.

DetectiveGreenGA

This deputy was wrong on several levels: first off he wouldn’t allow this father to pick up his children, and it's his responsibility to ensure they get home safely. Second, the officer was the one being confrontational, not the father. That he abused his authority for something so stupid shows how desperate he is to meet a quota. Third, the officer was abusive to the father's girlfriend when he threatened to arrest her for being where she could video the activities of this moron with a badge. This deputy reminds me of Barney Fife.

kaydeebeau

Well Mr Sheriff if you really believe …”the sheriff also said he agrees with the father on principle, saying the policy is creating safety concerns because it has created a line of cars along the highway outside of the school.” If you think the law is wrong, why are you enforcing it? Are you claiming that you are “just following orders” as if you don’t have a way to reject unlawful / immoral orders?

I don’t think that defense worked out too well in Nuremberg…what makes you think the same will absolve you?

sasquatch08

It’s not the deputy who's insane IMHO, but the deputy has two problems.

1) He’s the smaller individual both physically and mentally, and therefore easily intimidated, so he goes right to authoritarian mode. If Mr. Howe had made any “threatening” moves, such as stopping leaning on the counter at the wrong time, I have little doubt the officer would have drawn his sidearm.

2) He’s another example of a cop who’s got the “I am the law” mentality.

The insane one is the sheriff saying he doesn’t need to see the video because it “doesn’t tell the whole story” and then fully supporting anything his deputy might have done in a video he hasn’t seen.

It’s truly a shame that officers like this give the rest a bad name.

Most cops I’ve met are professional and polite. They may ask you to do certain things that you don’t like (such as keeping your hands in sight) because they have absolutely no idea who you are or what your mindset is.

The problem nowadays is that We the People have to have the same wariness of LEO’s that the LEO’s have of us because we don’t know which ones are professional and polite and which are just jack-booted thugs with a gun and badge high out of their minds on some special authority they imagine themselves to have.

stevetherealist

I can already tell you there is more to this story. Who walks around knowing a technical law like the 15-minute rule he stated? My wife has been a school administrator for 15+ years and I thought I’ve heard it all. Just the same, it seems a little over the top. They can’t start handing out kids in a disorderly fashion, either. Sometimes divorced parents use the school for their little games. (He has a fiancée…so divorce seems likely.) How do they know he has custody? You guys think they should use your tax dollars and set someone out there with a table and identity paperwork every day in case one of the hundreds of parents decide to walk up? I think you already voted that down in the name of conservatives everywhere.

American Soldier (Separated)

First of all, yes, you were being confrontational.

Secondly, you were rightfully being confrontational.

The father was not a threat to anyone, especially his children. Why is he not allowed to walk his kids home?

He was not aggressive in his confrontation; no threats (other than mentioned potential lawsuit) were given. I am with the father on this one and I believe a lawsuit should be in order, which will change the policy.

BSDetector2013

Everyone who thinks this guy is in the right please answer me this question: What makes him so special that the system put into place to pick up the kids should not apply to him? I see this all the time in our child’s school where the parents will park a block away and walk in to get there kids and it causes all kinds of problems just because they don’t want to wait like everyone else. So I ask again, why is he so special? Do you people realize if 500 parents all walked in the front door at 2 p.m. what chaos that would be? There has to be some order. So I ask again, "Why is he so special? The answer is he is NOT and that’s why he was arrested."

EgbertThrockmorton

As a retired peace/police officer, the FIRST thing you are taught in the police academy, is that YOUR “peace” cannot ever be disturbed, per the U.S. Supreme Court.

This arrest is going to go absolutely nowhere, and the department and the school district will be sued successfully, or they will agree to settle. Bogus arrest by a jacka** in a uniform.

ocalacjv

They are not your children any longer when they are at school. On top of that you and your children have no rights while they are in school. I can give you examples as a parent and a former teacher. Just open your eyes and go to your school board meetings. School is not a “free” daycare – it is a driving force in your and your children’s lives and futures.

edrebber

It was unreasonable of Howe to expect to cut to the front of the line, just because he was on foot. Obviously Howe is not going to wait in line with the cars while he’s on foot, but he has to expect that there will be some delay to accommodate him. If the policeman left his post to retrieve Howe’s kids and something happened to one of the other kids, I’m sure we’d be reading about that as well. Howe made his case to the policeman and was told to wait. Maybe they will drop the charges or the judge will dismiss the case. Howe needs to hire an attorney and keep his mouth shut.

bussie

How pathetic. All it would have taken is a school official saying he understood and would get the kids. He then should have stated the policy needs to be revisited. The cop looked like a fool. I know his superiors will need to cover for him. He was just doing his job? Cops should try to defuse situations not fan the flames. He made no effort to work with the dad to resolve the problem. Cops lose on this one.

USMCEOD

Absolutely unacceptable. When a custodial parent comes to the school and wants their child, then the child should be handed over, immediately, no questions asked. I don’t care what super awesome plan some person dreamed up to release kids a certain way. I don’t care if the parent was acting like a child or not (I don’t think this guy was acting like a child). The conversation should have gone “Good afternoon, Ma’am. I am here to pick up my child." "Certainly Mr. Howe, I will have them brought to the office immediately."

The Cop’s only involvement should have been holding the door open for the family as they walked out. I am tired of everyone saying, "I am going to sue you" or "I am going to sue the county." In case you people don’t understand that route, let me lay it out there. When you sue a government institution, no single person is held accountable, which is why this keeps happening. A redistribution of taxpayer money occurs, and the person that was responsible is defended by government attorneys.

Until people like this resource officer and these school administrator are held accountable, personally accountable, they have nothing to fear. Fear controls government. It has for over 230 years. During this time government has learned a valuable lesson: To control an entity, the entity must fear the one wishing to control it. They have turned it back on us, and we willingly turn around and allow ourselves to be handcuffed and taken away. This needs to end.

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