Elementary speech crimes in New Jersey

Statist elementary school masters, police and prosecutors in Camden County New Jersey have clamped down hard on the fundamental First Amendment rights of all the captive kids in the school district.

Teachers and administrators were recently given a strict directive by the prosecutor’s office to call the police and report to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection “just about every incident” of even the slightest most minor of “speech infractions,” such as name calling, committed by the children at school.  

Since then, in this district of only 1,875 students, the cops and Child Protection Services have been called five times on average per day in the past month over the most trivial of incidents imaginable.

On June 16, for example, the police were called to the “crime scene” of an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood where a little 9-year-old third grader had, according to another kid, made an allegedly "racist" comment about the brownies being served to the class.

A cop spoke to the boy at the “crime scene” and later his father was contacted by the Collingswood police department advising him that the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.

The boy’s mother said he was "traumatized" by the incident and stayed home for his last day of third grade. She hopes to send him to a different Collingswood public school in the fall. "He was intimidated, obviously,” said Mom.  “There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying, 'Tell me what you said.' He didn't have anybody on his side."

Before this directive, the school district had only reported incidents it deemed serious, like those involving weapons, drugs, or sexual misconduct. Several parents say now that they consider the recent police involvement not only ridiculous but harmful. "Some of it is just typical little-kid behavior," explained one parent. Most of all, parents said they were concerned that undue police involvement threatened their children's well-being.

That’s an understatement if there ever was one. Police being called to an elementary school end of the year party to grill a little 9-year-old kid about brownies and what he said about them is about as bizarre as it gets.

What happened to the First Amendment?

What happened to common sense?

It’s been replaced by elementary speech crimes in New Jersey.