KUHF, an NPR affiliate radio station in Houston, Texas, reported on the federal investigation into the Bryan Independent School District’s policy of citing criminal misdemeanors for normative childlike behavior.
Excerpt from the show’s transcript:
When De’angelo Rollins started sixth grade here at Stephen F. Austin, he was excited. It’s a middle school in Bryan about an hour and half hour northwest of Houston.
But soon there were problems.
“He was coming home telling us constantly that this young man keeps bothering him, you know he wants to pick a fight, keeps bothering, ‘Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna fight?’”
His mom Marjorie Rollins Holman advised De’angelo to tell his teacher.
“And he told the teacher and to our surprise, the teacher told him, ‘Here in middle school we don’t tattle.’ So that next day came along, the boy ended up hitting my son in the face first, and of course my son hit him back and they got a little scuffle”
Holman was then surprised what happened to her son.
A police officer got involved and issued her 12-year-old son a ticket that would send him to adult criminal court.
Click here to read the full transcript or listen to the piece.
