It was an OK day today. It was 55 degrees and sunny at The Outpost in Back of the Yards. It was 51 degrees and sunny in Streeterville when I got back to the hood. Currently the lights have come on at Navy Pier and their reflections are shimmering in the lake. Still waiting for a sign of warmth.
A student of mine will be suspended from school tomorrow, and in all likelihood he will be arrested and fined. It seems that we figured out who it was that spray painted blatant gang graffiti on the wall in a locker area on the 3rd floor today. The young man in question thinks he got away with it. He thinks other people are stupid, apparently.
We all watch cop shows on TV. We all have read a mystery novel or two. Deduction is part of our repertoire. How is it that teenaged boys still continue to think that in a small school, people won't notice that they and their friends were in the wrong place at the appropriate time for the crime in question?
Unfortunately, I work in one of those schools where there are metal detectors at the entrance to the building. We have two Chicago Police Officers on duty on any given day, and 3 full-time Security Guards in addition. We have little cameras on the ceilings in the hallways all over the building. Still there are teenaged boys who think that no one will know that they were the perpetrator.
I came out of my room during my lunch period and encountered a female teacher who requested that I go into the Boys Restroom and run the two young men in the restroom out and send them to class. I went in and the two were, as it turns out, actually using the facilities. Still, it was the middle of a period and they had no business being in the restrooms in the first place. I went into a stall and proceeded to use the facilities as well. The young men, sensing that a teacher was in the restroom, left in short order. Couldn't dawdle with a teacher in there.
When I emerged from the restroom, I looked straight ahead into an alcove that contains lockers and Voila! There was a two foot tall gang symbol spray painted in red on the wall. At that point I became aware that there were two other teachers in "seriously concerned mode" standing in the hallway discussing said item of graffiti. I asked them when they first noticed said graffiti and they told me that it must have appeared sometime during 5th period.
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Alarms went off in my head. Just before 5th period I had been trying to herd my students into my classroom and one particular young man, instead of going into my class, made a turn into the alcove with the lockers. He was in the company of a friend. I need to add at this point that the two young men in question both dress in clothing that signifies their gang affiliation and both obviously belong to the same, shall we say, "Social Club." The young man who is in my class came knocking at my door to gain entrance about 10 minutes after class started. Hmmmm. Where was he for the previous 10-15 minutes?
"I say Watson. All signs point to the young men in question being the perpetrators of the crime. They belong to the gang whose sign is spray-painted on the wall. They were in the location of the crime at the appropriate time. Perhaps we should check the video on the security cameras and see if anyone else was there at that moment in time." Case closed.
Have I had cause to deduct on anything any more asinine recently? Hmmm. Well there was the case of several young men wearing very similar clothing who went into the restroom at the same time and consequently the smell of marijuana smoke became very evident in that same restroom. Jeeesus! How stupid do they think we are? Or more to the point, how stupid are they being? How long before they have all ruined their lives and ended up either locked up or shot? In the school, they use drugs and get caught. They sell drugs and get caught sometimes, sometimes not. They tag walls and act like total assholes. On the streets after school, they commit serious crimes, get shot by rival gangs, and arrested by the police.
One former student of mine shot another student as he walked two blocks from the bus stop on Ashland Ave to the school. The shooter was arrested that same day and at this point is still in prison downstate. One former student of mine was showing off a gun he had come into the possession of and accidentally shot himself in the groin. Very embarassing for a macho badass guy. The point is that the behavior in question is all very dumb, and the young man in my class, who will be suspended and probably arrested, is in an honors class. He is a young man who can have a future. He can get out of the neighborhood. He can rise above all this, or.....he can become one more victim of the neighborhood.
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