IF YOU ARE A PARENT WITH A KID IN SCHOOL... YOU NEED TO READ THIS

I have a story to tell, OOh, I like this font.  Anyway, I have a story to tell.  Names are changed, but this happened.  I find myself compelled to tell some of this story because I hope everyone shares this with everyone.  Maybe my friend didn't stop a school shooting..  but then again..  maybe she did.  Maybe she fucking, fuck this...  this happened to me.  To me and several other young people who shouldn't have to deal with things like this.

There is a boy..  he is 18 and was an Eagle Scout.  He was a friend of my family.  We all love him very much.  I wanted to help him.  I wanted to be his mentor, and guide him.  This kid has a mama that kicked him out when he was 10 telling him she didn't give a shit.

He moved in with grandparents, whom had already raised their kids.  He had very little guidance in the areas of immediate gratification, being a bully, handling his anger...  he was PISSED.  And no wonder.  Mamas that don't take care of their babies are the cause of so much damage in the world it makes my heart weep.

I do what I can to help these babies.  I have a lot of babies.  Two are mine, the rest are broken or orphaned baby birds (not actually birds, people) make their way to me.  They always have.  I love that I can talk to them and they think that I am cool so I have a rapport with teenagers, I always have.  Except my own...  that is another blog.

I thought I could help this violent and angry baby bird.  I was wrong.  My youngest son is in Boy Scouts and last week was at his weekly meeting, held in a church building that is local in my area.

Let me try to explain the players in this now, so there is no confusion, my two boys, Scout 2 shall be the angry bird (who is 18 and now no longer a scout but a leader) and scout 1 whom you will meet in a moment.

The damaged bird had been at my house quite a lot leading up to this.  I naively thought I could help him.  When I realized that I needed to ABORT ABORT, back away slowly...  it was too late.  My oldest son came to me after receiving a phone call from scout 2.  Scout 2 informed my son that Scout 2, my broken bird, had lifted his shirt and showed scout 1 a gun, an illegal handgun, tucked into the waist of his pants.

Now, as you can quite imagine scout 1 freaked out a little, then as he drove home he freaked out a lot and called my oldest son right away to tell him what scout 2 had done.  My son immediately came to me and my husband.

Mind you, everyone knows this boys is troubled.  We wanted to do the right thing.  However, at first the story was it was in the parking lot.  No, we then found out it was loaded and in the meeting in Scout 2's pants.  For the entirety of the meeting.

These boys have all been friends for a long time.  Neither my son, nor scout 1 wanted to get scout 2 in trouble.  However, the dads spoke on the phone and decided to leave the issue with the Troop's main pooh bah leader.  By this time it was around 1030 at night.  We were called by the other dad and informed that the grand pooh bah was going to alert the pastor that is in charge of the church.

Settle in, this is quite the story.

My husband told me before him and the rest of the "players" went to sleep that we trust the pastor of the church to do the right thing.  This has to be reported to the police.  Someone is going to get hurt.  I had spent the week with the broken bird, he was manic and a psychopath and I knew it, that is why I was trying to back my family out of it.  I tried to get us away from this cyclone of insanity. 

Now, everyone is in bed except me and my son.  My son had actually had a conversation with scout 2 about what he did.  He admitted to my son on the phone that he had the gun at the meeting.  It was also loaded.  The gun kid was so manic he kept trying to throw red herrings.  He kept trying to swerve the conversation around to talking about girlfriends etc..  My son asked him at least 20 times why we shouldn't call authorities.  I am a social work student and knew that anyone in a position of power (the grand poo bah of the troop and the pastor) were bound by law to contact the police.  

This kid was not talking about getting guns, he had been showing off his shotguns and now he was in a boy scout meeting showing off his latest "cool" thing, which happened to be a gun with the number filed off.  The Pooh Bah and the Pastor knew.  I knew they had to do the right thing, notify the police immediately..  as a social worker, nurse, Doctor, you name it, you know of an immediate threat like that..  that is what you do..  period.  Even if I had called mental health at the beginning of the night they would have been obligated to notify the police.  There simply was no way around it.

Here is a cute bunny to cleanse your pallet...  this is going to get a lot worse.

So, as I sat here with my oldest son we were talking about how we wish someone would let us know that the law was informed.  There was school in a few hours, the one scout 2 was kicked out of because he was caught with a knife in school; yeah that school.  

We started to wonder, how do we let them know?  How to we warn them not to let this child into the school?  I knew that in the manic state he was in, anything was possible.  Don't get me wrong.  I really love this kid.  He got a really bad shake at life and all he wanted was a mama to love him...  I wish I could have helped him.

So, at that point I pictured the red hair guy from the Sandusky stuff.  You know, the one that told his bosses and did nothing else?  Yeah, him..  I thought of him and I needed to make sure the cops were called, so I called them.  Never even considering the possibility that they had not yet been called.  My son and I talked it all through, we thought..  only we had no plan for what to do if they hadn't already been called.  It was impossible that they hadn't been called right?

The lady answered at the non-emergency number and I explained that I just needed to make sure they had been called.  That this kid could be dangerous and I was worried about the school.  Guess what readers?  The cops had not yet been called.  I was the first one, at 1am to call the cops.  

I was berated by the lady, saying we should have called hours ago, and I told her that I trusted that the people in charge would have done so.  Nope..  It was me.  FUCK!  I said lady, I was never going to be the one that called you.  I was worried about the school kids.  

So, now we have a grand pooh bah and a pastor that knew of this incident and did nothing.  They were at least supposed to alert all members of the troop with a letter, they didn't do that either.

So, this leaves me in quite the predicament.  Gun boy is mad because I called the cops..  and the boys scouts as well as that church don't look so good as far as I am concerned, they can go to hell, and my son is out of that troop.  He will get his Eagle from people that he respects, not leaders that are afraid to do the right thing.

Now, yeah...  there is more...  want another bunny?

I do not mean to make light of this.  This has shattered everyone at my house as well as everyone at the house of scout 1..  the kid who saw the gun. 

When I got off the phone with the police lady she got my number and said there are troopers in the area and she would have them call me if they have questions.

15 minutes later BOOMBOOMBOOM goes the "cop knock" on my front fucking door.  They were shining the lights in my house.  We had the windows blacked out because we were scared of gun kid.  I was shaking because I have a nervous condition, the cop would not accept that this is as calm as I was going to get and that I have a nervous condition.  His response was to shine that fucking mag light in my face (which makes my condition SO much worse) and just kept saying "calm down".  Because I have bad teeth and I was shaking I was automatically, in their mind, on meth.  In reality I don't have the money to fix my teeth which are bad because I had braces and they cracked my soft, European teeth.  I will fix them when I have the money..  until then I am still a human.  Not everyone with bad teeth is poor and stupid.  I may be poor but I am not ignorant or stupid. 

Now, he called my son out, who by the way was a fucking mess.  He didn't want to tell on his friend, but how do we feel if he flies off and kills someone?  He knew we had to.  I had to let him talk to the police.  We both said, no threats have been made, he is manic, crazy, and showing off.  However, he had already admitted blackouts to me.  I knew he had them.  I told the police he had them.  They told me to calm the fuck down.

Added note here, if anyone, ever, ever, ever again tells me to calm down they are getting punched in the neck.

They got the information from my kid.  The officer was awful.  Terrible.  He got the information about scout 1, and they left for his house to get his version.  However, before he left he looked my child in the eye and said, "you should have let them handle this in house, now this kids life is going to be ruined and it is all your fault".  My son is not the same.  He will never be the same.  He was shattered.  We both were.

Neither of us could believe that in a climate like the one that we live in, with all the school shootings, shouldn't a manic guy with an illegal firearm be reported to the police?  I fucking sure as hell think so.  It still doesn't quite seem real.

The cops went to scout 1's house.  They were very nice to him.  Very nice.  Turns out we were fucking telling the truth and uh-oh..  yeah it is a level 3 felony just for having the gun in the church.  

They arrested the kid and he turned on the guy that sold him the gun and got out immediately.  Wrote me a massive text talking about how he needs me to be his friend one second then cussing me for ruining his life in the next breath..  again..  not real secure with his state of mind.

Two days ago I called the high school.  Obviously I can't stop thinking about all that has gone down because this sounds like fiction.  It felt like fiction, like I was floating like a balloon waiting for someone to pop me.

So I talked to a lovely vice principle at the school.  Again, just making sure that someone did their job and the school was notified.  I am horrified to say I was the first to call.  They were notified of nothing.  So I gave them a description of the car and they know the kid.  She was headed straight for the principle and the office to let them know that under no circumstance should this child be allowed in the school.  This was days after the initial incident.

Now, I don't like the word cover-up.  I can tend to be a conspiracy theorist.. however, this was a fucking cover up.  No one wants anyone to know that the ball was dropped by many people, including the police.  I have plans that include that fucking cop apologizing to my son for doing the right fucking thing.

Here is the best fucking part...  the household everyone talks shit about.  They say that I am a no good pot head, because I think medicine should be legal.  They hate us because we don't go to church...  we are the black sheep..  We are the non-Christians who are destined for their version of hell. Yet, what do ya know?  WE were the ones that are taking the heat and taking a stand.  The fucking heathens doing the right thing?  I wish I was fucking surprised.

What the fucking fuck is wrong with the world when the very people who are vilified are the only ones that did the right fucking thing?  With the exception of scout 1, he did the right thing and like my son he is torn to shreds about it.

I was treated like a crazy drug addict and my son was treated like a criminal for reporting a loaded, illegal, gun in a scout meeting.  

The main point I want to leave everyone with is this...  don't assume that people in power that you trust..  don't ever assume they will do the right thing.  This story is proof that even the cops were sort of in favor of keeping this a secret.  Fuck secrets.

Sandy Hook, Columbine, all the shootings that have broken our hearts...  how many parents tried, like me, to do the right thing?  How many warnings were there that were ignored?  We don't hear about this happening on the news.  Reports before hand?  That's crazy, of course there couldn't have been.  Now I know better, but it doesn't make me feel better.  Not even a little bit.

It fucking sucks to be the ones.  It sucks bad.  It doesn't feel good, there is no parade and your stomach will probably hurt for a month, because it feels really shitty  My son missed two days in school because his stomach hurt so bad from the stress he couldn't even stand up straight...  but if I saved a kid from getting shot, it was worth it.

I am stepping back from the entire thing for the moment to catch my breath and allow my family to heal.  Then, fuck the bad teeth..  People need to know.  People need to do the right fucking thing, no matter how hard it is.