A story we covered briefly in the past has come to a justified conclusion, as Amara Harris won her case in DuPage County when a jury concluded that she did not knowingly take a pair of AirPods at school and found her not liable of violating a local ordinance against theft. It was a rare win in an unfair system of police being involved in school matters.
Harris, who’s now 20 years old and obviously not at school anymore, went to trial, hoping to clear her name, even as she knew that municipal tickets are hard to beat because the burden of proof is so low. The verdict this week capped an unusual, drawn-out saga over a controversial municipal ticket issued to Harris when she was a junior at Naperville North High School four years ago.
Between the time Harris was ticketed in 2019 and the trial this week, Illinois officials have taken steps to stop school administrators from working with police to punish students with municipal tickets for their behavior at school. Following a ProPublica and Chicago Tribune investigation, “The Price Kids Pay,” the Illinois schools superintendent told administrators to stop outsourcing discipline to police, and state lawmakers are considering ways to end school-based ticketing. There’s really no place for police in schools, other than last-resort protection from outside threats, which they’ve made clear is not a priority.
The ProPublica investigation revealed an assembly-line system of justice for municipal tickets that made it nearly impossible for students to avoid fines, and that fines and administrative fees could reach hundreds of dollars. Harris’ theft ticket carried a maximum $500 fine. I don’t know how your high school experience looked financially, but in my experience $500 for a high schooler might as well be $5,000.
Side Items
Hawaiian Water Shortages: Here’s a timely article from just a couple of weeks ago on Maui's water shortages caused by the US’s ongoing colonization, including water-intensive luxury resorts, overtourism, and even before that, reorienting traditional Hawaiian farming towards sugarcane plantations. There are four streams and rivers that flow out of the West Maui Mountains to Central Maui aka, Na Wai Eha which means “The Four Waters.” Hawaiians used the abundant resources available to cultivate taro farms and farm fishponds for subsistence living for centuries, but that changed following colonization and the sugar plantation industry. Today, much of the water is diverted, and Central Maui residents continue to dispute its allocations
SBF Straight to Jail!: A judge revoked the bail of failed crypto-king Sam Bankman-Fried yesterday after concluding that the fallen wizkid had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him. Ooopsies, can’t do that. Bankman-Fried listened while Judge Lewis A. Kaplan explained at length why exactly he believed the young man from California had repeatedly pushed the boundaries of his $250 million bail package (honestly forgot they handed out bail that high)
Pig Behavior: Kansas law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the office of the local newspaper, the Marion County Record, along with the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s homes. This (illegal) raid followed news stories recently published about a local restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with US Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving. Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message from police was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.” (definitely sounds like something a pig would say) The city’s police force and two sheriff’s deputies took everything from the newspaper office and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press