What kind of senior prank could require the bomb squad and put an 18-year-old kid in jeopardy of spending the next two to eight years in prison? A sex-toy-in-the-girls’-bathroom kind of prank, apparently.
Not just any sex toy, though. A blow-up sex doll.
The boy, Tyell Morton, was seen running from the school after a kid wearing a hoodie and gloves entered the school with a package and left without it.
“We have reviewed this situation numerous times,” Rush County Schools Supt. John E. Williams told the newspaper last week. “When you have an unknown intruder in the building, delivering an unknown package, we come up with the same conclusion. ... We cannot be too cautious, in this day and age.”
Okay, we get that. But then, after finding out that everyone was safe, and it was just a sex doll, the school had Tyell charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and institutional criminal mischief, a felony.
Way to ruin his future early!
A professor at the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis named Joel Schumm agrees that the school's overdoing it just a little.
“Their reaction is understandable, but use the school disciplinary process,” Schumm said. “Don’t try to label the kid a felon for the rest of his life.”
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts is saying this case smacks of racism. Tyell's father said he didn't think that was the case, but his mother refused to comment on it. Instead she talked about how Tyell, who wants to go to college, is handling all this.
"It's stressful for Tyell," Cammie Morton said. "He doesn't know where his life is going to end up. He has been looking – I'll just put it this way: He's scared."