Air support but no armor or artillery?

This is a follow up story from the one I reported on this morning. As Lyle pointed out in the comments it used to be there were rifle teams at our schools and bringing a gun to school wasn’t a big deal. Now they bring out dogs, helicopters (from two different jurisdictions), and police from nine jurisdictions based on a rumor of a one gun that might have been taken to school.



PINOLE: POLICE CLARIFY THAT GUN WAS SEEN ON SCHOOL CAMPUS BUT NOT FOUND



Two boys were arrested on suspicion of bringing an assault rifle onto the Pinole High School campus Friday, but, contrary to earlier reports, officers did not recover the alleged weapon, Pinole police Cmdr. Peter Janke said today.


However, police believe there was in fact a gun at the school Friday, Janke said.


“Our investigation shows that there was a gun brought on campus,” Janke said.


Somebody reportedly saw an AK-47 assault rifle on school grounds, he said. He declined to say who had spotted the gun.


Police did not find the weapon, even after an extensive search of the school, the school grounds and the roughly 800 students on campus.


Police say the two boys, both summer school students, were arrested for possession of an illegal assault weapon, bringing a firearm onto school grounds, being a minor in possession of live ammunition, being a minor with a concealed weapon, transportation of marijuana, being a minor in possession of a firearm with certain prior convictions and a probation violation.


The incident began just before 8 a.m. Friday when a passenger on an Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District bus heading to the school reported seeing another passenger, possibly a student, with a gun. The witness told police that the person with the gun might have brought it onto school grounds, police said Friday.


Pinole police received help from the Hercules Police Department, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol, the El Cerrito Police Department, the Richmond Police Department, the West Contra Costa County Unified School District, the Western Contra Costa Transit Authority, and the city’s public works department.


Gun-sniffing dogs from San Francisco and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District were also brought in while the U.S. Coast Guard and the East Bay Regional Park District provided air support, Janke said.


It’s all part of the demonization of gun ownership. If they spend $200K and thousands of man hours on just a rumor of one gun it makes it all the more easy to justify laws against gun ownership. After all that huge expense could have been prevented if there hadn’t been a gun for the kid to have access to.


But what I want to know is where were the tanks, artillery, and flame throwers? Or did they decide flame throwers were out after what happened at Waco?

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8 thoughts on “Air support but no armor or artillery?

  1. Wow. I wonder what would have happened if the shotgun behind the seat of my truck had been found when I was in high school. It rode there for 2 months.

    Ah, to be 17 again, all the way back in 1999!

  2. As I commented on the earlier post, I suspect the police were probably justified in taking the measures they did, given the population of Pinole and this high school. They probably prevented a gang hit on another gangmember or several. The original news article notes that the call came from a person riding on the A/C Transit public bus (not a schoolbus, btw) who saw a person concealing the gun, who might have gotten off at the school. The person who called the cops was probably not a fellow student (they wouldn’t “snitch”) but a concerned adult. The article quoted in this post indicates the police also had a witness who had seen the gun on school grounds, as well. They’re not identifying the witness because that person would likely be dead tomorrow if identified.

    An illustrative tool that lets you compare Pinole’s crime rate with that of other U.S. cities:

    http://pinole.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Pinole&s1=CA&c2=Livermore&s2=CA

    Yes, California used to have high-school rifle teams, but that ended long ago. It’s a felony to bring a firearm onto a high-school campus unless you fall within one of a very few exceptions to the law. Thus, anyone seeing a student in possession of a gun is quite justified in believing the student is up to nothing good. If a plurality or majority of the students at the school are known or suspected to be gang members, well….

    When my daughter was attending Davis High School near Sacramento, a student accidentally brought his shotgun on campus in his pickup after coming back from a weekend duck hunting. The idiot mentioned it to a fellow student and instantly he was in a world of hurt. It got sorted out, but could have turned out very badly for him. The only reason Davis cops didn’t respond like Pinole’s is the utter lack of gang activity in Davis.

    Even if high-school rifle teams reappeared in California’s interior counties, they’ll never come back to our thoroughly gang-infested urban schools.

  3. While I can grok the concept of being suspicious of a group I’m still wondering how it can pass constitutional muster that the entire membership of a group (that probably doesn’t have membership list anyway) can lose their 4th Amendment rights without due process. Could have membership in the NRA resulted in a similar loss of rights had Heller gone the other way and some state/city passed a law banning all firearms? Could the local government demand the membership list for their jurisdiction then go door-to-door searching for guns?

    I thought in order for a search to be valid there had to be reasonable cause to believe that particular person had the item at that time or in the immediate past and it was reasonably believed to still be in their possession. Surely it cannot be claimed that ALL 800 students were participating in a conspiracy to hide the alleged gun from the cops.

  4. Did a quick Google search and found this report of a California Supreme Court decision in 2001:

    “The California state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that school
    officials’ responsibility for school safety gives them the right to stop,
    question or search students with or without reasonable suspicion. The decision
    stems from a 1999 incident at a Los Angeles County high school where a security
    officer searched a 14-year-old student’s pocket and found a knife….”

    Link: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_August_14/ai_77199741

  5. “…anyone seeing a student in possession of a gun is quite justified in believing the student is up to nothing good.”

    And why? Because guns have been banned for law-abiding folks, and are now reserved exclusively for criminals. One insanity breeds another, or as I like to say; One little bit of socialism demands just a little bit more. (it’s more true then you can imagine)

    “…a plurality or majority of the students at the school are known or suspected to be gang members…”

    In a school run by the sane, that would not be a problem for any extended period of time. The gang members would be expelled, assuming the cops and the local residents didn’t get to them first. In a sane society, there would not be any benefit in being a member of a crime gang– only a very long prison sentence, or a death sentence.

    If the cops can bring so many assets to bear, based on an unsubstantiated rumor (who says the “gun” wasn’t a paintball gun, or an Airsoft? None of the investigators actually saw it) surely they have enough assets and aggression to clear out the gang activity within a month or two.

    If this rumor had happened in my school back in 1975, the principal, along with the teachers and staff, would have found out if there was in fact a gun. If there was a gun, it would have been taken, the parents would have been called, and that would have been that. Most of us kept out guns safely stored in the window racks of our pickups in the school parking lot.

    “Oh, Lyle, but you don’t understand– things are different here, and this is a different time…” Yeah, it’s different, and what’s different about it is the socialist loons have slowly taken control of the state and it’s gotten out of hand. Since Cali has gone to the dogs, all I can say is you people have made your bed of shit and for now at least, until there is some federal intervention to reinstate the U.S. Constitution, or until there is a real conservative movement there, I guess you’ll have to lie in it. Just don’t try to export your shit outside your borders, and don’t bitch about the smell of the bed you’ve made.

  6. Even if high-school rifle teams reappeared in California’s interior counties, they’ll never come back to our thoroughly gang-infested urban schools.

    That truly is a shame, since children taught proper use and respect for firearms are far less likely to use them illegally.

  7. It’s pretty difficult to conceal an AK. Even an underfolder is a big bulky beast.

    Seems like a case of mass hysteria instead of a real emergency.

  8. “In a school run by the sane, that would not be a problem for any extended period of time. The gang members would be expelled, assuming the cops and the local residents didn’t get to them first.”

    The problem is that even though the staff are well aware of who the thugs are, their criminal behavior is hard to prove. Try to expel a kid for too nebulous a reason and your district will be facing a lawsuit based on racism. The principal at my wife’s school is an exception — she is very aggressive at expelling students who don’t behave, which is part of why she was able to turn around her school despite continuing to receive busloads of kids from East Palo Alto. This principal, and the parents backing her, are exceptions in the Bay Area as a whole.

    “If the cops can bring so many assets to bear… surely they have enough assets and aggression to clear out the gang activity within a month or two.”

    Nope. They’re outnumbered. Big time. Widely acknowledged. The inmates are running the asylum, etc. All the Bay Area cops are doing is trying to keep the bad stuff confined to certain communities. They can’t stop it.

    “It’s pretty difficult to conceal an AK. Even an underfolder is a big bulky beast.”

    Heh. Have you seen what kids wear these days? I’ve seen knee-length oversize down parkas worn in 80-degree heat. Pretty clear what’s gotta be underneath all that bulk.

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