Early Time Change Costs Kid 12 Days In Jail

from the daylight-stupid-time dept

The early start on daylight savings time passed last month with little impact, both in terms of the predicted aclockalypse as well as the energy savings it was supposed to generate. However, the shift did have some severe consequences for one Pennsylvania 15-year-old: 12 days in the slammer. The kid made a call in to his school’s recorded information line in the early hours of March 11, just a few minutes before the hot line supposedly received a bomb threat. School officials, in their haste to find the caller, matched his cell phone number to a list of callers to the hotline that morning, and immediately pointed the finger at him. His phone correctly recorded the call time as 3:12 am, which was apparently close enough for them to the 3:17 am entry in the system’s call logs for the bomb threat. However, the officials hadn’t set the clock in their call system properly, meaning the bomb threat came in more than an hour after the kid’s innocent call, and it took nearly two weeks of the kid sitting in juvenile detention for somebody to figure it out. The real culprit here is somebody’s stupidity — because even if the time change hadn’t occurred, the call times still didn’t match up by five minutes.


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Comments on “Early Time Change Costs Kid 12 Days In Jail”

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27 Comments
Security (user link) says:

For the rest of his life - someone can Google him

Why was this 15 year old’s name ever released to the press?

12 days in detention! Was he being held without bail – or was his parents unable to afford bail?

Did they ever find the caller who made that bomb threat one hour later?

Why did it take the D.A. so long to get that cell phone’s records, almost two weeks?

AZIZA says:

Re: For the rest of his life - someone can Google

Most juvenile systems don’t give defendants the option of posting bail. If you have a real lawyer and not a jackass from the PDs office, it’s possible to get released to the custody of your parents, no matter what the crime, but my guess is that this kid’s family didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer.

Prophet says:

My Lawyer would have a field day

I may be no legal expert but i have had a lawyer on retainer for over 1.5 years now just in case i ever need one, but thats the problem i understand the need, I had to sue ( and won ) for custody of my child last year and if i would of had a Free Pro-Bono lawyer i would of lost quickly, so i agree with AZZIZA but this is going to get ugly for the schoolpoliceDA. And who knows what Mental Disdain for the Legal system this kid is going to aquire through this ordeal, they might of just runined a good kid ( although i dont know for sure) who might now rebel hard and screw his own life up before he even knows it.

Doug says:

Re: The Cup is Half Full

Are you kidding me with that comment?! The kid didn’t commit a crime; he need not be given a lesson he’ll never forget. If you truly believe what you posted, let us take the same preventive measure and throw you in jail just to make sure you won’t ever commit a crime. That makes sense to you?

And, which criminal justice system are you referring to? The one I’m familiar with certainly does not discourage recidivism.

Michael Kohne says:

Times

The post points out that 3:12 does not match 3:17, however, if the school’s phone system isn’t set properly for daylight savings time, why do you have any thought that it would otherwise be correct? Most phone systems that I’ve seen have the time off by several minutes unless they have a way to automatically sync to a real time source or someone cares.

I’m not excusing the investigators for screwing up like this, but I doubt I’d balk at a 5 minute difference, either. Of course, I wouldn’t stop investigating at that point, I’d verify whether the damn thing was right before I trusted the records.

philosopherott (profile) says:

Re: School Night

If he is an athlete he might need to see if the school region is open to go in for a practice or a meet or match. When i was in highschool I needed to go in at 4 am some days to get to wrestling way in’s on time where ever the match was that day. Even on sundays when tournaments where. I am sure that there are other legitmate reasons. maybe the hotline was in his phone book and he just went one line to far when calling some one else. give the kid the benifit of the doubt.

Rob says:

How DARE you criticize our fearless heroic law enforcers as they swiftly act to heroically rid the streets of horrible evildoers? I feel much safer knowing this miscreant is rotting in jail, along with that woman who DARED expose her students to evil nasty PORN POPUPS on a classroom computer. When evil rears its ugly head, we must not HESITATE to ponder “facts”, we must ACT IMMEDIATELY with SWIFT JUSTICE on the heads of those who would commit ACTS OF EVIL…

Heil Bush!

Warren says:

Kafka meets Orwell

Sue the school principle for not making sure the phone system software was updated. What if that oversight had resulted in an loss of life? Good thing the kid wasn’t assaulted in jail. And the blind person who couldnt tell the difference between a 7 and a 2 needs to find a different line of work where time is of no importance and reading isn’t a requirement.

Warren says:

Kafka meets Orwell

Sue the school principle for not making sure the phone system software was updated. What if that oversight had resulted in an loss of life? Good thing the kid wasn’t assaulted in jail. And the blind person who couldnt tell the difference between a 7 and a 2 needs to find a different line of work where time is of no importance and reading isn’t a requirement.

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