Here are my facts: Teacher is suspicious that student is spitting in her drink at school. She leaves her tea sitting out and has someone watch it. Sure enough, student comes by and spits in it.

While I believe that spitting in any fashion should be at least a state jail felony, I can't figure out an offense. Tampering with consumer product doesn't really work, since the tampering occurred after the sale of the product had occurred. Never mind that I would have to prove that SBI would occur. I considered retaliation, but I can't figure out what the threatened unlawful act would be. While a high school might resemble a correctional facility, it's not, so the chunking statute wouldn't apply.

Hopefully I am missing the obvious answer. Any suggestions?

This thread might help. https://tdcaa.infopop.net/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=347098965&f=157098965&m=864101992&r=375102992#375102992


A retaliation charge may be possible. A teacher is a public servant. In re F.C., No. 03-02-00463-CV 2003 WL 21282766 (Tex.App.-Austin June 5, 2003, no pet) (mem op.).

Tell the school to discipline the kid. Stretching a statute to fit this situation just causes more problems. The criminal and juvenile courts cannot solve all problems that occur at school.

Steph, don't you think an administrative remedy by the district is best? Surely they have a choice of mechanisms available to discipline, suspend, put in alt learning center, detention, etc.

Ditto !

Gross yes, but fitting of something worse than 30-45 days in Alternative School, no.

Saturday detentions were all the rage back in the 80's as a punishment for this sort of high school behavior. I hated having to scrape chewed gum off of the bottom of desks.

Suggest to the school that the spitter serve in-school suspension or detention on a Saturday or whatever punishment they see fit. I don't see a 'criminal' act here.

I suggest that the school district should allow the teacher to prepare the child's lunch, out of view of the child - but supervised by a few of the child's known enemies, and it be presented to the child for consumption, just to see if the kid likes the tables turned. It might make a great point.

Heck, why not just make the child fill up a teacup with his own spit and drink it? After all, if he thinks it's good enough for his teacher he ought to be willing to swallow it himself. And that way we know he can't complain about not knowing what might be in it

On the all-time "gross-a-meter", Wes, you scored a "10" with that one.

Thanks! It's nice to be recognized for my accomplishments.

I bet that teacher won't leave her iced tea sitting unattended anymore, will she?

Also available at the Washington Post website:
Garfield

I'm just taking a stab in the dark here, but you two are big fans of "Fear Factor", aren't you? ;-)

Thanks for all the input. You are probably right that the best remedy is to let the school handle this administratively. Like I said, I just have problems with the whole spitting issue. But the good news is that the school police haven't called me back. Maybe they decided to handle this one on their own!


Thanks again!

Your unlawful act for Retaliation is Class C Assault.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stephanie Stephens:
I'm just taking a stab in the dark here, but you two are big fans of "Fear Factor", aren't you?

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I actually can't stand Fear Factor, since eating gross stuff is really less "fearful" than just nauseating...perhaps if all the contestants were punks who had done gross things to someone else...