A Texas eighth grader who used a $2 bill her grandmother gave her to buy school lunch last year found herself in the police's office.
Danesiah Neal only wanted to buy some chicken nuggets at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Houston, but the school confiscated the $2 bill, told her it was fake and turned her into the authorities, according to ABC.
Neal, who has never had any problems with the school before, said that police told her she was in big trouble.
The school then called Daneisha’s grandmother, Sharon Kay Joseph, who told them the bill was real and that it was given to her at a convenience store.
Police then went to a bank which verified the authenticity of the bill. Since the bill was made in 1953, the school's counterfeit pen didn't work.
No charges were filed against the middle schooler but her grandmother is outraged and says she had to go hungry that day because the school took her money. The police finally gave Joseph her bill back.
'He brought me my $2 bill back,' Joseph told ABC. 'He didn’t apologize. He should have, and the school should have because they pulled Danesiah out of lunch, and she didn’t eat lunch that day because they took her money.'
Houston schoolchildren have been known to photocopy money and try to spend it, but this is not how incidents should be handled.
I read about this on the (excellent though depressing) Mimesis Law blog. Their take is basically that once you put chips in schools they need to justify their existence, so young teenagers get terrified for no good reason at all. Or worse, charged with felonies, locked up, beaten...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's the link: http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/texas-where-schoolhouse-lunch-lines-lead-to-felonies/9310
Chips being cops, of course. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThe girl's name is Daneisha. I'm pretty sure she's black. I'd be willing to bet that if a white girl had used the $2, nothing would have happened. This is TExas, after all.
ReplyDeleteYou are, of course, correct. I went to the original story link (see above) and there are more details. Commenting on the article has been suspended.
DeleteI _will_ say that I was about 11 before I discovered that $2 bills actually existed.
This all reminds me of this old joke (goes back AT LEAST to the 1960's):
A counterfeiter (of that era) sets up his press wrong, and instead of printing $10 bills, he winds up with several sheets of $18 bills. He's very upset, as he's just burned his best paper, and finding good paper on which to counterfeit is not easy. After stewing for a bit, he comes up with a Brilliant Idea: He'd go out into the back-country, where the hicks don't know sh*t from Shinola, and try to pass them there.
So he cuts up his sheets into single bills, gets into his car and drives. And drives. And drives until civilization is a dim memory in the rear-view mirror. Eventually he comes upon a country store, sitting all by itself along a mountainside deep in Appalachia.
He parks and walks in. There's no one in the place but the proprietor, and the counterfeiter jawbones with the old guy for a bit. At length he says, "By the way, I need some spending cash a little smaller than what I've got on me. Can you change an $18 bill?" He takes out one of his creations and passes it to the old guy.
The geezer behind the counter looks at the bill, bites it and holds it up to his eyes for a second inspection. "Sure," the old guy says. "How d'ya want it? Three 6's or two 9's?"
Lurker111
It's just amazing no one in the school, and none of the police were aware the two dollar bill was legal tender.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if they are that ignorant, how can they be so hateful as to get police involved (yeah, @misterjeff, I get what your saying, but ...) If you think it's fake, just say 'nice try, missy' and hand it back to her. Maybe at most send a note to her parents.
DeleteGet cops out of schools (alternatively put cops in school - to learn to do the job better).
I have a friend who will occasionally tell a cashier at a restaurant or mini-mart something like this. "I just came back from a trip to Hawaii and all I have is some leftover Hawaiian money. Can I pay with that?" At first there is hesitation. Then he pulls out some good ol' U.S. currency and offers it to them. Many get the joke, laugh, and go on about their business. However, some will become suspicious and refuse the money. Some have called managers. One manager even refused to take his money and insisted on a credit card. Even after my friend explained the joke, the manager still wouldn't take that Hawaiian money.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet. Tell them it is New Mexican money.
DeletePerfect example of America First Americans too ignorant to recognize what they are supposedly upholding.
ReplyDelete