This young man's future is destroyed because of one thing...

[whitewolf001]

I know that the over reaction of school systems and administrators has been brought up here lately but this, this is just beyond me how prosecutors like this can sleep with themselves at night. I understand the young man made a little mistake but destroying his life for it?

 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/12/teen-jailed-for-13-days-after-emt-kit-pocketknife-and-found-in-his-car-and-thats-just-scratching-the-surface-of-jordan-wisers-nightmare/

 

Meet Jordan Wiser, a high school senior you might call an overachiever.

Enrolled in an Ohio vocational-technical school, Wiser was taking Firefighter 2 and EMT courses to bolster his dream of future public service. “Last year, I completed the law enforcement course,” the 18-year-old told The Huffington Post. “I received several certifications, including the National Terror Defense certification from FEMA, the Terror Recognition certification and (certification as an) Emergency Vehicle Operator.”

Wiser also joined the Army, enrolling the Future Soldiers program, and was scheduled to ship out in August. After his planned military service, he figured he’d embark on a career as a police officer or firefighter.

But Wiser’s big dreams of public service are on hold. In fact, he’s now enduring a nightmare.

It all started Dec. 12 when administrators at Ashtabula County Technical and Career Campus (A-Tech) in Jefferson, Ohio — about 60 miles northeast of Cleveland — questioned Wiser after an alleged tip regarding videos uploaded to Wiser’s YouTube account. Among the clips are reviews of video games and merchandise, home defense tactics, and an interview with a local police officer.

“The principal said he had reason to believe I had weapons in my vehicle and needed to search it,” Wiser told the Huffington Post. “He made me empty out all my pockets, and the vice principal grabbed me and patted me down very forcibly. It was somewhat awkward. Then they took my car keys. I told them what was in my car and said, ‘Don’t be alarmed.’”

Wiser added that he didn’t give school officials permission to search his vehicle, nor was there a warrant to perform the search. But they cited the school handbook as their warrant, he said, adding that they denied his request to call an attorney. And what did they find inside Wiser’s vehicle? A folding blade pocketknife, a stun gun and two Airsoft guns.

Airsoft is a game akin to paintball in which participants shoot each other with round non-metallic pellets, and Wiser said he had plans for an Airsoft game after school. The stun gun was for self-defense, he said, adding that the pocketknife was part of his EMT kit.

“My stun gun was locked in the glove box,” Wiser told the Huffington Post, “and the knife was in my EMT medical vest. I bought it at K-Mart and have it as part of my first responder kit for cutting seatbelts.” Wiser was arrested and jailed for illegal conveyance of a weapon onto a school ground, a Class 5 felony.

Harold Specht, the chief assistant prosecutor at the Ashtabula County prosecutor’s office, said the charge is related only to the pocketknife.

“I was in jail for almost 13 days,” Wiser told the Huffington Post. “The first bond hearing I went to was on December 15. The judge ordered me [to be] held on a half million-dollar bond, pending a psychological evaluation. I did that and passed. They found I was not suicidal, homicidal or a threat to anybody. My attorney brought it up in front of a different judge, who let me out on a $50,000 bond and an ankle monitor. I was released from jail on Christmas Eve.”

Given his school’s locale, Wiser doesn’t understand all the hubub over his pocketknife — nor the wide-ranging fallout from its discovery.

“There are kids at my school all the time who get caught with knives and are suspended,” he told the Huffington Post. “My school is very rural, and people carry knives. I can accept the fact that there was a lapse in judgment, and I can accept a punishment, but I have already been expelled from both the tech school and my home school.” Jerome Brockway, the A-Tech superintendent, declined to discuss the case.

And since Wiser’s felony charge, he said the Army discharged him pending a not-guilty verdict or dropped charges without prejudice.

That’s not all. If the felony charge sticks, things could get way worse.

“If I am convicted of a felony, I’m never going to be a police officer. I’m never going to be a fireman. I’m never going to be in the military,” he added. “I won’t even be able to be a janitor. I’m 18 years old, and this is going to ruin my entire life.”

If all of the knocks against Wiser weren’t enough, he added that the conditions of his bond prohibit him from contact with his grandfather, who is dying from cancer.

“The one judge I went in front of told me to remove any firearms from my parents’ house and put them at my grandpa’s house,” Wiser said. “The next judge freaked out about me even knowing what a gun is and put a no-contact order against me and my grandparents. My grandfather is dying right now, and I am not allowed within 500 feet of him.”

There was a petition on change.org that demanded Wiser’s charges be reduced to a misdemeanor, and within 48 hours, it attracted 1,349 signatures. But Wiser said he asked that the petition be closed, which it was.

“The court threatened to hold sanctions against me and my lawyer,” Wiser told the Huffington Post. “I guess the prosecutor was upset because his inbox had been flooded with emails as a result of the petition.”

Specht said he’s aware “there’s a load of people out here that just think we’re the devil because we’re allegedly ruining this young kid’s life,” but he insisted that’s not the case and that the felony charge is justified and there are no plans to reduce the charge.

“There are all these school occurrences where people are shot, people are killed by other students,” Specht said. “We see it every day … so we don’t take these things lightly. … We have to be sure that we don’t have a potential for something like that to happen here.”

Wiser said he’s offended by Specht’s characterization.

“I was enlisted in the Army and went to school to be [a] police officer and fireman,” he said. “Why are they trying to paint me as a potential school shooter? I never had any intentions of hurting a soul.”

Wiser’s attorney, William Bobulsky, did not return calls for comment from the Huffington Post.

Wiser is scheduled to appear in court again on April 1 for a pretrial hearing. A jury trial is tentatively scheduled for June 11.

“Never in my life did I think this would happen,” Wiser said. “I dedicated my life to public service, and now a four-inch pocketknife could ruin everything.”

[monkeylizard]

RobertNashville beat you by 42 minutes:

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/76978-public-schools-fail-again-he’s-18-and-spent-13-days-in-jail-for-a-pocketknife-in-a-school-parking-lot/

[whitewolf001]

RobertNashville beat you by 42 minutes:

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/76978-public-schools-fail-again-he’s-18-and-spent-13-days-in-jail-for-a-pocketknife-in-a-school-parking-lot/

 

[cj0e]

Annnd I am stealing this pic.

[Grunt67]

Rather strange he went thru all these LE classes & didn't learn that knives & stun guns aren't allowed on

school property.

Felony is over the top tho. Ohio may have stiffer laws.

[Guest Brutnus]

I don't understand how they are allowed to use the knife if they didn't have a warrant to search his car? Really sucks for this guy. 

[RC3]

He may not have had a reason, but I am sure as hell would have one now. And someone may have made up the story told to the principal to hurt him, since I do not thing his vehicle had a see thru trunk. Messed up. And even after passing the evaluation test, the judge still considers him a threat? With all those credentials, something seems off.

[TrickyNicky]

Just awful. I sure wish the kid luck, hopefully the DA office comes to their senses or they get a third judge who has some.

[Murgatroy]

I don't understand how they are allowed to use the knife if they didn't have a warrant to search his car? Really sucks for this guy. 

Don't have to have a warrant, it states right there in the school handbook (most likely) that if he parks on the property his vehicles is subject to random searches.

[No_0ne]

I don't understand how they are allowed to use the knife if they didn't have a warrant to search his car? Really sucks for this guy. 

 

Pretty standard on all school campuses, warrants aren't required to search any vehicle parked on campus.  While I definitely think there are many reasons to downgrade the charges against him, an illegal search is not one of them.

[JWC]

Have a lot of people shot up schools with pocket knives?

[Guest theconstitutionrocks]

Its Ohio, same state where out of control cops threaten to shoot motorists they pull over (Daniel Harless much?). Further, it has already been established that a students 4th and 5th amendment rights do not stop at the schoolhouse door. This is just one more example of how out of control and in collusion local governments and the courts have become. Constitutional protections mean nothing when they can simply be trashed by some tyrant wearing a black robe.

[tnguy]

Hopefully they'll be able to claim that the knife was not a weapon and it will get dismissed or he'll be found not guilty.

The stupidity of schools is one thing but for god's sake let's not let the laws go there any more than it has already.

[bersaguy]

If you give any school board an inch they will take 100 miles to prove a point. I hope the young man gets a jury trial and a great lawyer and is able to walk away from this whole ordeal with no record and the school system is taught a good lesson. ..................jmho

[RobertNashville]

Pretty standard on all school campuses, warrants aren't required to search any vehicle parked on campus.  While I definitely think there are many reasons to downgrade the charges against him, an illegal search is not one of them.

I may be way off base but I'm pretty sure that a "school" (essentially a branch of the government) does not have a right to ignore the constitution meaning that searching anyone's vehicle would still require a LEO with a warrant or at least some pretty good probable cause to be legal. A locker inside of a school building is one thing, the trunk of a privately owned vehicle is another.

 

Of course, to fight it would probably take a lot of $$$ that the kid/kid's family likely doesn't have.

 

Of course, none of that alters the fact that this "Zero Tolerance" Bovine Scatology is exactly that, BS. Parents need to get back control over their public schools or get their kids the hell out of them.

Edited March 15, 2014 by RobertNashville

[tnguy]

Robert, I agree with you. I think the problem is that if you refuse the search, the school may well take punitive measures such as expelling you. Which should not be legal but it's where it is right now.

Still, I think the message is clear: Refuse the search because expulsion (and maybe not even that. Does anybody know?) is a whole lot better than a felony charge that will ruin your life. I hope you all are teaching your kids that.

And they wonder who no one respects authority any more... Edited March 15, 2014 by tnguy

[whitewolf001]

All this boils down to once I have kids, they will be home-schooled. That isn't to say they wouldn't have any kind of social life, I just will not have them getting indoctrinated by the common core controlled system that is public schools today. The school rules alone are enough to make you wanna puke. When I was a senior in high school, I was 18. I was in my vehicle leaving school grounds though still technically on the grounds whilst smoking a cigarette on my way out, the vice-principal at the time saw me, got my license number, and gave me three days lunch detention(which is where they put you so they don't have to have someone stay after school and pay them to watch over us). That's moronic as I am of age and it was AFTER school hours, hence my point. These douchnozzles take "rules" and stretch them as far as they can, as Bersaguy said, give em an inch....

[TMF]

This wasnt at a public school, this was at a technical college. You can home school your kids on how to be a master welder, but that won't mean squat on a resume. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[whitewolf001]

This wasnt at a public school, this was at a technical college. You can home school your kids on how to be a master welder, but that won't mean squat on a resume. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

More in general reference to the way schools have been declining but okay.

[Murgatroy]

This wasnt at a public school, this was at a technical college. You can home school your kids on how to be a master welder, but that won't mean squat on a resume. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It was a public VoTech. I don't know if they still do it this way, but when I was in High School you could opt out of the college track and go VoTech where you would learn real world skills instead of algebra. Shop, welding, woodworking, etc...

[TMF]

[quote name="Murgatroy" post="1125035" timestamp="1394911108"]It was a public VoTech. I don't know if they still do it this way, but when I was in High School you could opt out of the college track and go VoTech where you would learn real world skills instead of algebra. Shop, welding, woodworking, etc...[/quote] Yes, but anyone can go there. It isn't a high school campus. I was commenting in regards to folks making this a public school issue. It isn't. This campus is part of a business. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Dane]

Seems to me that we are missing half of this story. I'm wondering if he didn't go tacti-cool know it all mall cop wanna be on them. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Dustbuster]

I feel for the kid but ohio has always had fucked up laws and rulings. I have. 2 words to describe this kids dilemma: Kent state


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 of course it ate my spelling.