A 13-year-old Buddy Taylor Middle School students became the fourth Palm Coast teen in the span of six days to face a felony charge and arrest, in this case for bringing a BB gun in the shape of a Glock. The student said he did so to protect himself against bullies, knowing that school officials would not protect him.
Parents at school board meetings have repeatedly alerted district officials of their concerns about bullying. Fr the 13-year-old Buddy Taylor student, a resident of Seminole Woods, the bullying is irrelevant: he faces a felony charge of possession of a weapon on school property, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a BB gun by a child younger than 16.
Two students who knew of the BB gun talked about it in class, which alerted school officials. The 13 year old was summoned with his belongings to the office of Steven Everage, one of the deans, who also summoned the school resource deputy. The student told the deputy that he brought the weapon to campus to “protect himself,” according to the student’s arrest report. The student had not filed complaints or written statements to the dean’s office about the bullying previously. He told the deputy he wasn;t thinking, and now realized he’d made a mistake.
“I spoke to him about the consequences, should he brandish the weapon,” the deputy wrote in the arrest report, “this incident could have been much worse.” The weapon looks like a replica of a Glock. The student was “highly emotional and explained that people in his class are [bullying] him about his race and [he] does not trust any of the staff to do anything about it, so he did not tell anyone,” the report states. The child is of Asian extraction.
The deputy spoke to the child’s mother, summarizing the incident and the impending arrest. The mother told the deputy she had bought the gun a while back, believing it was a toy gun. The deputy told her the boy could not legally possess a BB gun, and that it was no toy. The boy was arrested and processed at the Flagler County jail.
A week ago (on Jan. 24) a 14-year-old girl was arrested and charged with a second-degree felony for allegedly sending video threats laced in racist and homophobic language targeting at least two students at her former high school in Ohio. Days later two Flagler Palm Coast High School students were arrested for trading threats through texts.
“It’s an unfortunate situation that this child felt he needed to protect himself, but bringing a weapon to school, even it is not real, is not the solution,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “In the last two weeks we have made multiple arrests of students. Parents need to know and understand the law on BB guns and never remove or paint over the orange caps that tell others the ‘gun’ is a replica. This could have had a tragic and deadly outcome. I commend the school faculty that ‘heard something, said something’ and took immediate action.”
Jaii Hein says
I was bullied in 1959-66 at BHS because certain rednecks didn’t like my dad who was a teacher. 9 year old to 16… No resources to go to then … They overlooked that due to football or basketball status. Schools need to post more info on bullying on the campus and also anonymously reported. Wake up school board’s. I put my name here because people know me from living there 50 years.
Dennis C Rathsam says
We wouldnt have this problem if people would have kept Palm Coast as it was intended by ITT! A retirement community! We could have had the Villages,East, with the ocean, lakes, & canals!!!! NO school busses, impeding traffic, no 20mph speed limits.We could have been tooling around in custom golf carts….But no some moron decided to build a school
Endless dark money says
maga tards think more guns equals more safety right?
No one is safe with Nazis running the show. Look at the plane crash after they shut down the tsa and forced 100 senior officials to resign for fining the shadow president musk for not following safety standards. Retribution at its finest only cost 67 lives mostly children . Who will be next?
Concerned Citizen says
What does this say about the deputies at BTMS that this child didn’t feel safe going to the SRO? It’s a real shame.
JimboXYZ says
Every day I hear the loudspeaker at those schools. Sounds like a prison over there instructing the inmates. Doesn’t take them long after a Christmas => New Years Day break to end and they’re back at being the little criminals/monsters that we all know them to be. The bully(ies) need to be identified, troublemaker(s) at school is likely to be the residential neighborhood criminal(s) for vandalism and whatever else they do. What is Staly or anyone else as School Administration & Deputy doing about the root cause of the arrest. That discussion with parent(s) & student(s) needs to happen. Bullies tend that tend to get away with their activities usually commit their crimes when they think they can get away with it again. It’s just in their DNA that way. As for the students that reported the BB-gun, did they witness the bullying event ? Any child needs to report the bully incident in writing, that way it’s on record, regardless of whether the victim is confident school admin will do anything about it or not. Take it up with your parents as well and that way the adults are handling the incident devoid of the bully(ies) involvement. Give the officials there opportunity to handle & defuse the situation. Since the bullies were making it racial because the victim is Asian, I would expect that would result in arrests depending upon the level of threats involved ? Merely arresting the BB-gun victim isn’t really handling the situation in a comprehensive solution and making it abundantly clear that bully events have a zero tolerance just the same. Nobody wants this to spill over into their residential neighborhood either, bus stop or anywhere in between the process of getting to & from that school.
Gail D says
There was bullying at the schools in Daytona Beach back in the sixties when I was younger. No one would even think of reporting it, but then guns weren’t a problem. We need to figure this out! Seems a lot of parents are home schooling or going to charter schools and this is one of the reasons why. Our kids should feel safe at school.
TR says
Gail D, The problem with bullies is that they had bad parenting growing up. They may see one or both their parents treating the other with abuse, verbal of physical and they grow up thinking this is normal behavior. Or the kid isn’t getting any attention at home and so they bully at school.
YankeeExPat says
Dennis R.
Only for a certain skin color , would that be correct ?
Vincent Maccherone says
Hurt people, hurt people 💔
Ever heard of compassion? says
These kids lives are ruined because the sheriff only knows how to arrest and incarcerate. He has little to no compassion for what an arrest will do to a teenager. Ruins their chances to do many different things. The kid made a mistake and brought a bb gun to school. He didn’t brandish it or threaten anyone. Yes it was wrong but omg!
Common Sense says
Bullying is nothing new and never goes away. It’s everywhere and comes in many different forms. The root cause for such behavior issues has been the same since the beginning of time. “Education” Education not just from a school system but education that starts at home with basics which today almost doesn’t exist in all demographics. With ever increasing screen time from parents to children social behavior and mental fitness is an epidemic everyone is ignoring.
Gail D says
TR you’re correct. It all goes back to parenting, or lack thereof. Children on social media, learning how to behave in public from their phone screens instead of their family.
The sheriff is not responsible for this kind of behavior, nor correcting it, the schools and the parents are. Will they hear that, probably not. But I’m ever hopeful!
Skibum says
So this kid now says he was being bullied but never spoke out, never reported it to anyone, and instead decided it would be a good idea to bring a gun, even if it was a real looking BB gun, to school with him. Then tells other kids he has it, and thank God one of the other kids who knew about it or saw it had the good sense to report it to school authorities. In this day and age of so many school kids needlessly dying from other unhinged kids committing school shootings, who doesn’t comprehend that there will be SEVERE consequences for anyone daring to bring any kind of weapon, especially a gun, onto school grounds? Whether or not a singular accusation without any documentation or report of a bullying situation is true, this kid will surely fully grasp the dire consequences of his horrible decision making as he goes through the court system, and hopefully he and others will learn a valuable lesson in the proper way to go about dealing with problems with other students in school. Unfortunately, our gun-happy society is not helping when loosening gun restrictions and the old “stand your ground” idiocy here in FL is one of the big reasons why so many adults are making very poor decisions regarding criminal violations with guns, and kids see this in their lives and on TV, they hear about these incidents and think that packing a gun themselves is the answer to their teenage social issues, and probably cannot comprehend why they are being “picked on” by the criminal justice system when so many “adults” with pea brains are getting away with doing the same things they are doing when packing a gun around with them. When are the IDIOTS in Tallahassee going to come to their senses are stop the nonsense that is only reinforcing bad behavior in our society? That is the real question!