Students Allegedly Exposed To Inmates During Field Trip

[rainbow4321]

Ok...I still have kids in school so I don't think I am THAT out of touch with school field trips. Kids now being dangled in front of prisoners?? To think MY idea of a field trip gone bad is when my then-3 grader had to go on a field trip to the OUTdoor Learning Center in 30 degree weather...

http://www.local6.com/news/3998255/detail.html

A Brevard County Detention Center supervisor is under investigation Wednesday after elementary school children on a field trip were allegedly exposed to dangerous criminals, according to a Local 6 News report.

The supervisor, Lt. Mike Bown, was leading 20 students from Tropical Elementary School in Merritt Island last week and stopped near an inmate housing unit with the children, Local 6 News partner Florida Today learned.

During the visit, the students told their parents that the inmates were shouting at them and making gestures, according to the report.
Brown also allegedly singled out a student so an inmate could see him. "This is the accusation, that Brown took one of the children aside and said to the inmates, 'do you want this one,'" Florida Today online news editor Dave Larimer said.

[BattyDem]

1. Why the f*ck would you plan a field trip to a prison anyway?!?

:shrug: :grr:

[Lenape85]

2. Maybe it was a trip to a police station/courthouse

I took one in 8th grade

[BattyDem]

3. I did, too.

But we were nowhere near dangerous inmates. The cops talked about their job, they gave us a tour of the precinct, they showed us how they take fingerprints, etc. "Detention Center" sounds like a prison to me, not a police station. Why take children to a prison? Is it to scare them? "Do as your told or you'll end up here!" :shrug:

[steely]

4. There's a video on the website - sure looks like a prison to me.

Merritt Island was a strange mixture of decent and some very wacky folk when I lived there - did what I had to do, then came straight home.

[Lenape85]

6. I remember a convo from then...

...my school district used to take kids through the county jail (it's behind the Ocean County Courthouse) but they stopped when the inmates would make sexually gratuitous comments at them.

What do you expect, I come from a freeper town, so anything's possible.

[Menshevik]

5. same here...in 6th grade

I remember when our class was passing by the drunk tank, there was a guy in there and he put his face up to the little glass window and screamed at us. Damn that was scary.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Same story from a couple of other sources........................

Parents Say Jail Field Trip Put Children Too Close To Inmates

POSTED: 4:38 pm EST December 15, 2004

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- It was a field trip to the Brevard County jail that was supposed to help kids make the right choice. But parents say it went wrong when the children got too close to the inmates. The sixth graders say some of the inmates were screaming at them and one of the officers was a part of it all.

This field trip to jail has been going on for more than 10 years, but a spokesperson from Brevard County Schools says there has never been an incident like this.

"He did not specifically hear any one incident, because it was quite loud. He just noticed that there was a lot of yelling going on," explains parent Sharon Doran.

Doran's 12-year-old son went through a Brevard County rite of passage, a class field trip to jail to show sixth graders the importance of making the right choices in life. But another parent at Tropical Elementary, and leaders with Brevard County Schools, believe the tour guide made the wrong choice when he led 20 preteens into a housing unit full of screaming inmates, some of the most serious offenders.
(snip)

Channel 9 spoke to Lt. Brown over the phone Wednesday. He couldn't talk about the incident, but said the incident has been blown way out of proportion. He says, once he's able to tell his side of the story, people will understand what he was trying to do.
(snip/...)

http://www.wftv.com/news/4000366/detail.html

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Dec 14, 11:23 PM

Inmates harass kids; jail officer faces inquiry

FLORIDA TODAY staff


...."The thing, as it is being alleged, is highly misinterpreted," he said. "There are hundreds of people in Brevard County who have taken my tours. Never has there been a complaint like this."

He said he could say nothing else because of the ongoing internal-affairs probe.

Tours by students at the jail are commonplace, but school kids ordinarily are not taken near units that house inmates, which happened Thursday during the Tropical Elementary tour.

Greg Futch, the jail administrator who took over in April, said he encourages tours so the public, including children, can observe life first-hand at the overcrowded jail, where five inmates have died in apparent suicide attempts since last December.

"We're having one or two groups a day now, this is the busy season," he said.

But he said school tours ordinarily are escorted to an enclosed observation platform, where they can see into the housing units but cannot hear anything, and inmates cannot see them.
(snip/...)

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/localstoryN1215INMATE.htm

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Breaking Post:

Anyone who watches local news enough knows that in a town with a lot of tv reporters pushing and shoving for the most sensational stories, you get a LOT of unbelievable exaggeration.

[VegasWolf]

8. Unbelievable, inmates screaming at sixth graders. Propose this one

for the Creationism Award.

[Porcupine]

9. Don't Fundies love rape stories?

If you're bad we'll give you to bubba here to keep as a pet. Of course they get to watch on CCTV. I think that Fundies everywhere seem to get off on rape in general.

Muslim fundies do it. Hindu fundies do it. Serbian fundies do it. They did it all the time in the "Old South." Scratch a fundamentalist and you'll likely find somebody who has rape, and dominance fantasies.