A 16-year-old took an unloaded .32 to CHS today, found on him after an officer broke up a fight. He’s in jail. #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Sad. Such a Ghetto thing to do. Bring an unloaded handgun to a school. I have had 5 kids attend CHS, and 4 of them have hated it more than words can describe. One still attends and seems to have a balanced perspective. “Its CHS, its Ghetto” she says. I still remember bitching out Dorothea Shannon many moons ago.
Curiously, we moved two of the kids to Covenant school after their 9th grade year while the two other kids graduated CHS. Surprisingly enough, it is the CHS graduating children that graduated college on track. The Covenant kids… both out of college without degrees.
Now if we could only convince those boys with that cotton tops which hang down around their knees are really called dresses and that belts were meant to hold pants up, not to be used to hang onto when running so your pants dont fall down around your ankles….
Guess I am getting old.
CHS has had those problems for years, since the 70s. Actually reflective of the state of affairs in our community, sadly.
Can’t assume though this student was African-American based on the newsplexx story. Might be, but then again knew someone who got threatened with a knife when he worked at CHS some years ago-and the student was white.
They need to clear out the hoodlum element over there once and for all. Policy should be -“bring a gun or other lethal weapon to school-you’re out for good(like UVa’s honor system for cheating). And you will serve time behind bars.”
At the same time do away with the “zero tolerance” nonsense” where kids can get in trouble if some administrator decides a nail file or a pair of scissors is a weapon-makes a mockery of fairness.
racially loaded comment aside, I should mention that I hated the heck out of CHS, for the one year I attended (I think it was ’96? I’d have to count backwards…)
There are way too many great things going on at CHS for one idiot to bring them down. I have 2 kids in the school at present and they are thriving in academics, sports and band.
For the year I was there, I found CHS to be a culture of complete neglect. If you weren’t “tracked” into the group with the highest academic achievement, they were basically just trying to make you sit down and shut up for the majority of the school day. Success for 90% of the school was defined as “no one is starting a fight” … apart from that, nobody cared. Most students were basically viewed as having no worth whatsoever, and the majority of the curriculum was transparently focused on “busy-work” rather than education.
High school is tough. It’s when young kids MOST need someone to give them a coherent, positive image of themselves and their place in the larger world, and it’s the time when kids are LEAST open to that idea. Putting them in an environment where it’s made abundantly clear that nothing they do matters is, perhaps, the WORST thing you can do to someone at that age.
So I don’t find it even remotely surprising that a kid would bring a gun to school. Sure, schools do not exist in a vacuum, and social problems in the outside world will manifest themselves inside the school as well, and that’s something that’s always going to be difficult for schools to deal with (I have a good number of friends who are teachers, so I can sympathize.)
But when I hear about a 16-yr-old bringing an unloaded gun to CHS, my first thing is: that’s an environment where most kids have never been provided with a successful or coherent or convincing argument not to do such a thing. of course it happened.
CHS isn’t all terrible. I have a number of good friends who all liked the school and did well there (they were all AP students). But it was pretty fucking terrible for me. I dropped out after a year.
Hollowboy, am I to understand from your comment that the policy at CHS is currently NOT “bring a gun and you’re out for good and will serve time”? If not, it would be the first public school I’ve ever encountered that did not have a zero-tolerance policy against weapons.
Whatever their policy is it does not seem to be working, as incidents like this keep occurring.
Or maybe its because people like that simply don’t care what happens to them. Or they figure somehow they will beat the system-didnt those thugs from CHS who were beating up UVa students a few years ago, most of them get off with a slap on the wrist?
What I remember about that was my dismay when some “community leaders” including I believe a School Board member, seemed more concerned about what might happens to the perps than what had happened to their victims.
The Code of Conduct for the Charlottesville schools, (http://www.ccs.k12.va.us/uploads/CCS-Code-of-Student-Conduct.pdf) states that bringing a firearm to school is grounds for being expelled for one calendar year.
@James, did you ever get a high school education?
Cville Eye-
Yep. College education, too.
CHS has been on a downward track for years before this student with a gun came along. When I was at CHS it was hell on earth for me and most of the students who wasn’t in the AP classes or was on the sports teams. When i was a freshman at CHS (1997-1998 school year) I was suspended for 10 days. the adminstrator who suspended me gave out where i lived at to the parents of another student. I almost quit after that school year or waited until i was in 11th grade. i got out of there in 2001. graduated with a 3.17 gpa. the odd thing was i wasn’t in no honors class whatsoever. another thing is that the sca is a mess. if there is a contested election for class president and if you’re not like in any honors classes and win the students will look down. but if you lose they will let you know it. for years after the fact. i ran for sophmore class president in 1998 i lost in a landsilde. the class president who i ran against had 72% of the vote compared to 28%. I graduated before some of the people were involed in beating up of uva students. i knew some of them. i stayed out of that situation. some of the teachers retired since i left. my feeling is that some of them were tired of the Bullshit that is chs. it’ll get worse. but it can get better. my solution is get some adminisrators that has a backbone and suspend students. another is give student who aren’t in those damn honors class the benefit of the doubt and that school can get better. one last thing no student at chs should at there until 3:30 in the afternoon. that’s plain wrong. they should be out at 2:30 in the afternoon because some have sports practices or other activites or jobs. the last thing i want to say to say to the adminisration is start dispincing those students who start trouble for once in your life. it’ll make a hell of differnce!!!!