On April 14th, 2009, two middle school boys were expelled and arrested for spiking their teacher’s coffee with a substance that sent her to the hospital. These two boys, ages 13 and 14, were arrested after their 39 year old teacher fell ill at Sequoyah Middle school in Auburn Washington. According to the school, the teacher had seen the two boys at her desk earlier that morning, before she had taken a sip of her coffee, did not think anything of it and continued on with her morning. She later got sick from drinking her coffee and had to be rushed to the hospital. Turns out that the solution they put in the coffee was ipecac, which is syrup that induces vomiting. The teacher was then treated at the hospital and was released and is reportedly doing much better. Unfortunately for the boys, on the way out of the school as she was being taken to the hospital, she was able to point out who the two boys were. These boys also had boasted about the prank to fellow classmates and after being apprehended by school security officers, they admitted to spiking the coffee. These boys were then expelled from the school and are currently booked as juveniles with charges on suspicion of introducing a noxious substance with the intent to commit bodily harm.
When talking about juveniles, especially boys, a lot of times we try to justify why they do the things that they do. In most cases that explanation is the “boys will be boys” idea which allows these kids to get away with more than they should. In our society it is expected that boys will be delinquent and will get themselves into trouble, which is something I feel she not be accepted and should be looked down upon. I feel that in too many cases, especially ones like this one, these young men find it to be ok to participate in these behaviors and know that they will probably get a slap on the wrist for their actions. Therefore I hope that a case like this will help establish a foundation for other people and other schools to place more focus on trying to cut down on actions like this. I’m sure that these boys were not intentionally trying to hospitalize this woman or kill her, their intentions were most likely to get a couple laughs out of the situation and to continue on with their day. Therefore, by the school and law enforcement punishing them the way that they did hopefully it will make others think twice about repeating these actions and deter them from participating in this kind of delinquency.
http://news.aol.com/article/teacher-coffee-spiked/427712