Cody Webb and his mother.
Fifteen-year-old Cody Webb, of Greensburg, “called a school district hot line to listen to a recorded message about school delays at 3:12am EDT on 11 March”, his mobile phone records later revealed. The next morning, school officials discovered said bomb threat logged at 3:17am.
The powers that be therefore concluded that “Webb had made the threat because they also found a record of his phone call”, the lad’s attorney Tim Andrews explained. The school’s principal confirmed his guilt by asking Webb for his cell phone number later that morning and then quickly declared: “We got him. We got him.”
Webb refused to confess, was arrested “on a felony charge of threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction and related misdemeanor counts” and thrown into Westmoreland County Juvenile Detention Centre for 12 days until the truth was revealed.
In fact, because the school had not reset the clock on the hot line, which continued to show Eastern Standard Time, officials and police failed to spot that the bomb threat had actually come in at 4:17am – more than an hour after Webb’s innocent call.
Andrews explained: “The district attorney subpoenaed the cell phone records, and it didn’t take more than a minute to see the times didn’t match.”
Webb was finally released “when a state trooper failed to show up at another hearing”. The charges were dropped on 27 March.
And I love how the principal is teaching her students important concepts such as being considered innocent until proven guilty…
‘They just started flipping out, saying I made a bomb threat to the school,’ he told local television station KDKA. After he protested his innocence, Webb says that the principal said: ‘Well, why should we believe you? You’re a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.’
Here’s a link to Principal Kathy Charlton’s website.
Of course she’s a hardass, she’s a Spartan.
Bombs are weapons of mass destruction now?
I guess that pretty much every country involved in a war for the last 100 years ought to be sanctioned for using bombs, then, eh?
Seems like they trumped up that charge significantly. Last I checked, bomb threats were usually charges of uttering a threat or something, weren’t they? Probably not, but it certainly wasn’t “threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction”.
I want to comment on the principal’s statements, but I can’t find a good way to word it.
And the sad part is that you have lousy school administrators regardless of gender..
This is sad. And even sadder is that the Principal refuses to apologize. Sadder still is the juvenile detention officials didn’t want to release him because they wanted a mental evaluation as he refused to admit to the crime. The saddest part of the whole deal was that the actual bomb threat came from a blocked number.
http://tinyurl.com/262l7e
Yup, somehow I see the School Board paying a couple of teacher’s salaries to settle this mess.
A good enough excuse (for me) to abolish DST. Let’s move the clock back one half hour and call it good enough forever.
So, I followed the link to the school district’s website, drilled down a couple steps into the site, and found this:
“3/20/2007: IMPORTANT: NOTICE REGARDING BLOCKED PHONE NUMBERS
The Hempfield Area School District will no longer accept calls from phone numbers that have been blocked. If you have a blocked telephone number, you must remove this feature before placing the phone call to any of the school district buildings. ”
— seems to me the caller blocked their number, too — end of story. 🙂
so, isn’t anyone going to complain about those damn lawyers …?
She has two Master’s Degrees? If I was her, I would ask for my money back. Wow.
Becaused he refused to admit to the crime? What did they do, smash his balls with a sledgehammer so he’d cough up when he didn’t do it?
Thanks for the website, sent her an email, he he.
So where is the outrage calling for this DipShts job!!
If Don Imus can be fired for speech inspired hurt feelings why can’t a modicum of justice be applied when speech inspired loss of liberty has undeniably occurred!!!!
This principal is a poor excuse of wasted education, to leave unpunished. No wonder students get all whacked out and start shooting.
Doesn’t a young Male deserve justice anymore !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think she spent a little to much time out in the Hempfield.
Why would anyone use caller id as a security measure. It is to easy to hack. With this calling card you could make it look like it came from the principals house.
This could have been a lot worse…..
Mike Nifong could have been the District Attorney.
It seems to me that this was handled horribly. Police should have visited the boy’s house and checked things out to make sure there was no danger. Then he should have been barred from comming to school for a day or two while things were sorted out and police investigated. Finally after they had enough information, then he should have been sent to juvenile detention.
The principal ought to be ashamed of herself. The school district’s site proudly proclaims they shall prepare students to demonstrate academic skills and social responsibility but they certainly set a poor example of critical thinking and taking responsibility for their mistakes.
An apology from the principal herself is the bare minimum Webb should accept.
I blame it all on Dvorak’s server geek — the time hasn’t been right on this forum since DST was official — it’s still an hour off.
Hey you kids — learn to tell time (and get off our lawn) !!
http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Pacific/d/-8/java
I completely agree that it’s people like this principal that are signs of our failing education system in this country. She also received a nice email from me.
My wife works for the local school district and they can’t figure out how their phone system works either. These schools think they are so “tech savvy” when in fact they haven’t got a clue. Maybe Greensburg should give one of their students a job and let them fix the phone system.
16…are you saying schools have an exclusive on idiots? Sounds to me like the local law enforcement people need their heads pulled out of their butts, too.
#16 – and news of our failing schools and incompent administration is grossly exagerated. Further, many draconion policies and actions are the result of pandering politicians and over zealous and myopic parents too….
Now, we have a case here where I think its fair to say that NO ONE acted right except the innocent victim. But this is more an exception than a rule.
This happened, and we aren’t involved, so instead of thumping chests and casting blame, let’s talk about how to change the minds of those who put pressure on administrations to be some absurdly draconian and paraniod, and let’s spend a little time looking for examples of positives in education so we can dispell this myth that all our schools have failed… when honest observers know that just isn’t true.
I think that this is the best story so far that illustrates the absolute madhouse our Nation of Hysterical Cowards has become.
Innocent person imprisoned for crime that never seems to be more than a phone call by a person who magically “knows” the criminal is guily followed by police treatment Gitmo-style.
How many innocent people are in jail or dead because of our magical wonderland of cowardice and incompetence, I ask you.
And oh yeah, the school pays for this guy’s education through his first doctorate. Pain teaches well.
So no one killed the principal yet?
This woman is a principal?
She has less logic than a grade 6 student!
Well ofcourse this can happen these in no such a thing like innocent until proven guilty these days it is guilty until proven innocent. no more United States of America, now it is United Social States of no Rights (USSR) this kid should sue the district to pay for all his schooling until he has as many PHD’s as he wants.
This incident is yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
Revolution is the answer.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov’t and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
Welcome to the new police state! Guilty until proven innocent. Mental evaluations for refusing to ‘confess’?? Lucky he did not try to run away or argue with the cops- he could have been shot. This is criminal negligence and malfeasance on the part of the school staff as well as the police. Refuse to apologize? Such arrogance in public officials needs to cut off at the nub. I would sue the school, principal and law enforcement agencies for this boondogle of incompetence and also demand firing of at least one principal. If you let people treat you this way with no consequences soon we will have active ‘Gitmos’ here in the states full of American citizens held under some psychopaths concept of ‘enemy combatant’. If you think this hasn’t happened yet you HAVE NOT been paying attention!!!!!!!
are you saying schools have an exclusive on idiots? Sounds to me like the local law enforcement people need their heads pulled out of their butts, too.
Comment by Olo Baggins of Bywater
I’ve found in ANY job (private or government), there are always idiots.
Except the Bush Administration, where everyone is doing “a heckuva job”.
J/P=?
21, OFTLO,
You know I love to agree with your points, but here is one that has me thinking. To answer your last paragraph, the answer is right in some Virginia college town. The next day quarterbackers are analyzing this to death. The scary part is how many warning signs they claim for the accused killer do you, or any of us, have.
I don’t know why Virginia Tech happened, but that is why the Principal reacted and this kid spent almost two weeks in jail.