My 12 year old son is a great kid. Never been in trouble with the law or at school. Good grades, lots of friends, good family, his father and I are happy etc. I found out recently that kids these days are “joking” about school shootings and apparently it’s a thing according to other students and teachers. . My son was asked by another student jokingly if he would shoot up the school and my son jokingly replied, “yea sure”. That student went around telling other students how he replied and a parent ended up calling the sheriffs office. Obviously, this caused an issue (understandably so) and we were called to the school that night to discuss with the superintendent, an investigator and police. The situation was explained and the superintendent told the police that he knew there was no actual threat, he called the source (kid that started it by asking the question and spreading the response) and that student even said “oh no he was joking”. It’s a very small school with maybe 40 kids in each grade so the superintendent knows the kids well. A couple of days later, my son was arrested and taken to juvenile hall. The sheriff’s office also posted online VERY misleading information about his arrest. With it being such a small area, they didn’t have to post his name for everyone to know who the kid was. The charges were dropped by the DA after a couple of months since there was no evidence of intent of course but the damage is done. He is not able to return to his school and the surrounding areas won’t accept him. We’re forced to homeschool him now. On top of that, the sheriffs office will not give us his phone back even though the case was dismissed. Can we sue the sheriffs office? I absolutely understand looking into a threat and he deserved consequences for saying that even as a joke but this went too far. Juvenile hall was traumatizing as he has never been exposed to anything like that before.
Location: Texas.
Comments
A joke shouldn’t ruin a kid’s life. This was punishment, not protection.
It doesn’t sound like you have anyrhing to sue the sheriff’s office for. They likely will not release his phone until after the statute of limitations for whatever offense he was charged with expires, since the prosecutor could still elect to re-file.
You could technically sue the Sheriff’s office to return the phone. But it likely wouldn’t be worth the time and effort.
Absent some additional information, like the arrest was retaliation for something else and not about the reported threat, I don’t see a cause of action on the police for performing an investigation and charging your son, or detaining him during that investigation. I also don’t see any cause of action related to defamation by the sheriff’s office unless what they said was actually false and not just misleading.
What I am not clear on is why your son can’t return to school? Is the superintendent telling you he isn’t welcome back? Or is your son just uncomfortable?