Are New York's Finest Underworked?

Spring break seems to have kicked off the silly season in the USA. In my last article, I wrote about a Florida sex phoneline operator who was suing for worker's compensation, on the grounds that frequent masturbation - required by her job - had caused her to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

Now, a 13-yr-old girl in New York has been charged with criminal mischief. The "suspect", Chelsea Fraser, was handcuffed and placed under arrest in front of her classmates in Dyker Heights, after she wrote "Okay" on her desk. Chelsea has since apologized for her "crime", but both she and her mother are shocked at the punishment.

"I'm appalled, because here we have rapists, murderers, and you're taking a 13-year-old kid? Wasting valuable manpower to arrest a child who wrote on a desk?" Fraser's mother, Diana Silva said. It does seem a bit bizarre in this day and age, where young students are frequently charged for serious school offences such as possessing weapons, dealing drugs, or assaulting other students on school property

Fraser was arrested at the Dyker Heights Intermediate School on March 30, along with three other male students. She says she was made to empty her pockets and take off her belt. Then she was handcuffed and led out of the school in front of her classmates and placed in the back of a police car.

"It was really embarrassing because some of the kids, they talk, and they're going to label me as a bad kid. But I'm really not," Fraser said. "I didn't know writing 'Okay' would get me arrested."

"All the kids were ... watching these three boys and my daughter being marched out with four - they had four police officers - walking them out, handcuffed," Silva said. "She goes to me, 'Mommy, these hurt!"

The students were taken to the 68th Precinct station house where, Silva says, they were separated for three hours. "My child is 13-years-old; doesn't it stand that I'm supposed to be present for any questioning?" Silva said. "My daughter just wrote something on a desk. I would have her scrub it with Soft Scrub on a Saturday morning when she should be out playing and maybe a day of in-house; and a formal apology to the principal,"

I realize that it is probably politically incorrect to be critical of New York's finest; but, honestly, guys!

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