DOCUMENT: Bizarre, K-12

Boy, 13, Busted For Illegal Marker Possession

Oklahoma math teacher in citizen's arrest of student

permanent marker

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Child Marker Arrest

DECEMBER 22--A 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday for using a permanent marker while in class at his Oklahoma City middle school, a violation of an obscure city ordinance.

According to an Oklahoma City Police Department report, the boy was spotted “in possession of a permanent marker” by Roosevelt Middle School teacher DeLynn Woodside. The 50-year-old educator told cop Miguel Campos that the student was “writing on a piece of paper, which caused it to bleed over onto the desk.”

Woodside, pictured at right, reported that the child, whose name was redacted by police from the report, attempted to hide the marker when she asked him for it. Strangely, Woodside’s Facebook page reveals that her “likes and interests” include the official “Sharpie Permanent Markers” page on Facebook.

Campos reported that he allowed Woodside, a seventh grade math teacher, to “sign a citation” against the boy, who was then transported to the Community Intervention Center, a juvenile holding facility. A police sergeant subsequently “booked the marker into the property room.”

A police spokesman referred to the student’s bust as a “citizen’s arrest” effectuated by Woodside.

The marker ban--which apparently is aimed at curbing graffiti--stems from a city ordinance making it illegal to possess spray paint or a permanent marker on private property (without the owner’s permission). (2 pages)

Comments (558)

Excessive adipose tissue between the upper body and upper extremity can cause cerebral anoxia with resultant hallucinogenic manifestations of self- righteousness and concomitant delusions of superiority. The remediation process requires a good, swift kick in the patient's posterior as this is the shortest path to the patient's brain. I live in Oklahoma City and I find it extremely difficult to believe OCPD would have officers so stupid to make an arrest based on this. They have much greater concerns in sw OkC with drug traffic and random gang violence. The alleged offender's problems are nothing compared to the complainant's when FLoTUS gets a look at her. He may go to jail, but she will be sentenced to salads and high colonics for the foreseeable future.
Awesome.
I like this. Long-winded, sure. I'll let that pass. Along with the "high colonics"~ May I contribute my observation under SpectreDeed? Stephen.
When the laws are stupid, the consequences become insane.
Very well said!
The police said this was a "citizen's arrest" by the teacher. OK, a person making a citizen's arrest assumes the liability for the arrest. The boy's parents need to get an attorney to determine if the arrest constitutes a "false arrest". If any aspect of the arrest, detention or treatment of the boy was unlawful then the parents should file a complaint with the police against the teacher and sue both her and the school district. In addition, the parents should hire a private investigator to thoroughly investigate, within the limits of the law, every aspect of this teacher's life to determine if everything she is doing is legal. After all, if we are going to start arresting people for every possible minor, petty violation of the law then the people doing the arresting need to be held to the same nitpicking standards they apply to other people.
Hey, Willie, talk is cheap but hiring a lawyer and a Private Investigator isn't. What you say sounds good but what you have is an aggrieved citizen with, probably, limited resources as vs. the funds available to a public supported school system. How can they possibly compete with that? Good luck, citizen.
Let's hope the boy's parents have a lot of money :-)
Became a Member on Smoking Gun just to say that most of your comments have totally cracked me up. 500 Rubles... lol And Private Versus Public Property- didn't even think of that. Well Done! And dont mess with the Manatee's, I hear ya. It's possible though that she's one of the less than happy people through the holidays that finds purpose in knowing the nooks and crannies of laws. Like the brilliant educators that suspended those Christmas Sweater kids for handing out candy canes because when sucked they can become sharp and pointy like a weapon. (like a pencil when sharpened couldn't) And then to say, that they should keep their joy to themselves, as there might be those with suicidal thoughts during the holidays and their joy could be a dagger to their pain? (after all, Im sure kindness to others could never improve it!) Just your fine taxes at work.
First off sharpies are not really "permanent markers" in spite of what it says on the pan. A paper towel and a little rubbing alocohol would take off anything on the desk in two seconds. Second...schools are not private property so the ordinance could not have been violated in that respect. The teacher and cop should both be charged with civil rights violations...fired...jailed...definitely sued.
How true...even on dry erase boards, just write over it with a dry erase marker and voila! All gone. Read the police report...teacher said the kid "hid" the marker. I am still laughing at the cops for putting the marker in "evidence lock up". Awesome use of Taxpayer money. Just one more reason not to move to OK.
Absolutely true! Just a kleenex and some regular rubbing alcohol will take sharpie marking off instantly and completely. If I were that kid's parent I would make a federal case of it, and make that fugly teacher sorry she ever inflicted her stupidity on MY kid. Bet 100% she voted for Obama, too.
By the looks of this "lady", she probably does not know a whole bunch about cleaning...... other then the cat box her 62 cats use.
A trained, professional, experienced bureaucrat - i.e., a freaking idiot. Apparently Senators Stupid and Crazy aren't aberrations.
Let me get this straight. The permanent marker in the kid's hand MIGHT have damaged a desk. So instead, we haul him to jail and are CERTAIN to permanently damage him. Some trade. That teacher needs to learn a hard lesson. A couple months in jail would do it. Where the hell are the parents and judges in that town?
The intent of the law is to have a method to prosecute GRAFFITI ARTISTS. THe second DISGRACE here is that the Cops , obviously power mad, would not throw her out for her complaint. And some of you ridiculed us a few years ago when we were preaching about the POLICE STATE? This woman needs SERIOUS psychological help. Her actions are RETALIATORY and HARASSING.
Looks like the cops used the kids Sharpie to redact the charge form. I think the teacher has been sniffing Sharpies.
500 rubles says she would not have had the boy arrested if the marker was edible.
Since when is a shool private property? The public i.e. taxpayers own the school, don't they? If the kid was at school, in a publicly owned building, the ordinance shouldn't apply. (For that matter it is a stupid ordinance. Around here most grafitti isn't applied to private homes or businesses but to publicly owned interstate overpasses, walls around city halls, etc.)
This teacher should have her head examined. If this is what the kids put up with on a daily basis, no wonder they seam to all be going crazy.
I think this is a true case of dumb and dumber. First she should not be called a teacher but the instigator with a lot of personal baggage. The Police sound like they are the off spring of Bernie Fife. Good thing the kid didn’t have the sharpie 5 pack they sell at Staples or he might be facing life in prison.
5 strikes and your out! That's a "repeater" so even a child could, theoretically get life without parole if they were in Russafornia. They should only sell them in "2 packs".
I'll give up my Sharpie when they pry it from my cold dead hands. The world's gone mad.
Bean me up Scotty …..there are no intelligent life forms in this planet.
Is that supposed to be a smile? That woman seems strangely familiar like she's had her pic in the news before. I guess it's easy to understand what happened here. Delynn watched the Oprah show the day before when someone got a free car. Delynn reacted with the audience as she scarfed down some junk food. When her surprise turned to resentment she drained herself of all the empty caloric food she ate and she became angry. Having no one else to share her anger her anger was then turned within and she became depressed. The next morning still suffering from a prolonged poor diet, her endocrine system became unbalanced and triggered the usual PMS rage (similar to roid rage except in women who don't take steroids). She then went to work looking for someone or something to satisfy and share her feelings of unhappiness. This kid takes out his sharpie and starts drawing or whatever. And Delynn seizes her opportunity. Over reacts and calls the cops who are just as stupid to answer the call in the first place and arrests the kid. So now what the world is a safer place? Thanks Delynn. Stupid law, stupid lawmakers, stupid teacher, and stupid cop = kids not learning anything other than stupid adult behavior.
Sound like you have your own issues; you're obviously no longer talking about the teacher. Please seek therapy. p.s. A Sharpie would not bleed through paper-that's the smoking gun
Any reasonable person should be able to tell that we're not getting all the facts. Therefore, it is impossible to admonish either side. There are some things that we do know. A Sharpie would not bleed through paper onto a desk. A Fat Marker, preferred by taggers, would easily bleed through paper. Fat Markers are illegal in the possession of minors in most cities. Stop jumping to conclusions and using this opportunity to dump on teachers.
What are you? Some kind of incompetent, passive, propaganda swallowing idiot? I bet you'd have said "we can't admonish either side because we don't have all the facts" when the Nuremberg trials were conducted behind closed doors in 1945. Jack-ass...
You can have your opinion before you judge, but you cannot judge until have heard the facts from both sides, that's why they are called trials. Even at Nuremberg, judges listened before they sentenced. In a truly fascist regime there are no trials only sentences.
I know this family... we in the community saw this coming. The whole family is a bunch of pen-users. I once saw the boy's father out in their yard with a Bic pen tucked behind his ear! In broad daylight! It's about time someone did something.
I love the person here who asks "what else could she do???" while pretending to be a classroom teacher. PUH -Leeeeze. Do you really need a list? First of all, it'snot REALLY a problem. Wanna make it one? 1. send kid to office. 2. have him stay after class. 3. Ask for the marker a SECOND TIME. 4. Stop dating dumb cops and telling them about "this one kid really p***** me off" Anybody knows that THIS was preplanned. Sooner or later he will find a waitress and start arresting her bad tippers for "Theft of service". In Texas, one gal I worked with had 5 guys arrested before the cop got fired. As far as those who disagree couldn't handle a classrom? At my school the girl voted "Miss school name" was immediately stabbed through the face with a pencil. I took a knife from a kid forcing his way to a water fountain before my first class began my first day. I broke up more than 20 fistfights EVERY DAY the first year I was there. My third year, a kid pulled a 44 magnum revolver and clicked it inches from my face THREE TIMES. I froze up and he freaked and ran. With the crowd closing around him I had no chance of catching him so I DIDN"T EVEN REPORT IT. and YES, I know a real gun when I see one, own several. You see at some schools being "eaten alive" doesn't mean an occasional spit ball like in your namby pamby world. One of my fellow teachers was offered 500 dollars by another teacher to throw him down a flight of stairs so he could get out of the last 9 weeks. Finally, the idiots that run this town need to figure out that a school is not private property, fire the cop and the teacher. DUH. OH I'M CERTIFIED SECONDARY MATH IN TEXAS NEED JOB WITH INSURANCE MY NAME IS MY BLOG NAME
MPA, maybe you're on to something, the ordinance says it's illegal to possess the marker on private property. Is a public school considered "private property."
This reminds me of the Clint Eastwood film, "The Unforgiven;" there really isn't a sympathetic character anywhere in sight. From a kid too stupid to give up a marker when he's caught red-handed, to a teacher who actually calls the police in on a matter of routine discipline, to the police officer who wasted taxpayer money instead of simply telling the idiot teacher to deal, to the juvenile officer who sent a kid to a "holding facility" for a dubious summary offense, there appears to be no one with a either a smudge of charity or two brain cells to rub together. Yoy and double-yoy.
She is under-utilized as an educator. She would be much better in a position of authority...say, high up in the FCC where she could enact uni-lateral regulation across the entire country without going through Congress first. Could be appointed the Czar of Sharpies. That child is just the stepping-stone to her success.
I think that you are still underestimating thsi women. The position as Czar of Sharpies would only be a watse of experience this women has. She should be imeadiatly placed on the supreme court. With common sense like what she has shown here and the willingness to act irrationally. Not to mention her vast knowledge outdated and under utilized laws.
She must have known that all serial killers have used a sharpie at one time or another in their lives,. And for all of you who think it was the tone of her voice that made him think he had done wrong, so he hid the sharpie, that just couldn't be true!!!
The marker ban--which apparently is aimed at curbing graffiti--stems from a city ordinance making it illegal to possess spray paint or a permanent marker on private property (without the owner’s permission). ^^ If that is the case then he did nothing wrong. That school is "public" property, NOT "private" property.
I'm reasonably sure there's a prospective teacher looking for a job that could easily handle this situation. Lets take DeLynn out of the classroom and put her on unemployment....it'll cost the taxpayers less for stupidity.
Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud.
You can personally contact both the Principal and Ms. Woodside at their work emails here: Delynn Woodside - 7th Gr Math - [email protected] Leon Hill - Principal - [email protected] Be nice, but ask why they would send this kid to jail over a marker. What has this world come to where both a cop allows this to happen and the teacher and principal are willing to destroy a kid's life over a marker. When I went to school this might have resulted in the teacher punishing you or sending you to the Principal's office. Worst case my folks would have received a phone call. Not the cops. Sad state of our education system. Kids with markers need to be sent to prison. But making sure you can read, write and know your history not a priority!
hummn....wonder if teacher or principal has a Sharpie in their desk......wonder if someone can go to the School and effect a citizen's arrest of the principal and/or teacher.....wonder if we have all lost our minds....oh yeah...remember Iran is getting a nuclear bomb
What a loser. She hasn't figured out that a call to the kid's mom will work wonders? And she is in charge of how many kids? Classroom management 101: F
Move her to the head shed if the teachers union won't let her get fired. She should not be allowed to work with students. Especially middle school kids who don't have an ounce of good judgment EITHER! If she has kids, I hope people will start calling the police every time they do something wrong. Let her hire a lawyer and she'll learn that a parent's job is to protect their children from heavy handed government. (Or heavy assed moronic math teachers!)
Union Shunion... Try to remember all the brainless ones blabbing away on the radio tend tolive in New York, Chicago. DC etc. Even if they don't -- like Michael Mudhead --- their brains do. Up there in the old days my Dad got causght inside the siddy limmits putting in a sidewalk. The union was very nice --- the first time. Their "finisher" came over, waved a finishing tool at the cement, took his payment of a couple hundirt ( this was 1958 I tinks) and left. 2nd time theyda dona differnt typa finnishin. OK? HOWEVER, this is OK city. The union ain't gonna do nuttin. PERIOD. If you think this is like NYC or elsewhere.... the teacher pay scale us 31K to start plus 400 bucks for each year of service. OK? In return for that you get to work where you think a sharpie is something to worry about.
Unreal. While China, India and Brazil are kicking our ass, we waste time with nonsense like this. All to justify overgrown government agencies that result only in more voters for the left. What happened to this nation!
Let me see, she is a teacher, she needs to control her class, the boy is using a marker that is forbidden, the boy refuses to give marker to teacher. That seems to be the situation. The teacher can just let it pass, allow the kid to refuse to obey a directive while at the same time deface a desk or she can maintain a sense of discipline in her classroom and keep the kids in line. Teachers have limited options, but if a child is being disrespectful enough to refuse to surrender an item then the teacher is going to take whatever steps needed to get the item from the student and make an example so they do not have the same problem next time. The only losers here are those that have no idea how to handle large numbers of children and would be eaten alive if they walked into that same classroom to deliver a series of lessons.
"the boy is using a marker that is forbidden" By whom ? Can you prove the school had a printed policy against markers? Because the regulation she misused wasn't a school regulation, it was a city statute. Basically it sounds like she tried to confiscate the marker on her own authority. Ironically this sort of thing happened to me when I as a boy. I had a red pen, and the teacher objected since he graded with a red pen. He gave up when he realized he had no authority to confiscate a pen. Which showed he had some brains. Try to wield more authority than you have and you lose credibility.
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. I've been managing classrooms in east Los Angeles for over 15 years and I've never called the LAPD! And I've dealt with real crimes committed hardened students whom everyone has given up on...you don't know shiat about the options teachers have. You have NO business working in a classroom so shut your vacuous sewer you mindless, pathetic knave...
No wonder you get along with your east LA students so well. You sound like a thug yourself.
I have taught school for over 20 years...and I can tell you right now that the teacher has lost the respect of most of her students by calling the police. I would also predict that her discipline problems will escalate as the year progresses. I read a lot more into the story than the kid's (simply) using a permanent marker...I would guess that there is a history of disrespect on his part, which has made him very unpopular with his teacher, who probably felt that this was the last straw. However, depending on the kid's age, the disrespect should have been addressed via parent conferences, etc. long before it reached this point.