The police didn't force the destruction of evidence. It was the principal that told the student to delete the recording.

You know, to a highschool student, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference.

Because when the principal, the administrators, the teachers, and the cops are all standing around telling you that you must delete it or face consequences ... which entity is it which is forcing you to delete it?

And since the police then subsequently charged him with something, pretending like they didn't play a role in this farce is pretty naive.

What happens to the vast minority of people who always think they are in the vast majority?

They become politically active, and then continue to loudly claim to represent the vast majority even though they don't.

The problem with the gun control people, is that they fail to realize that they are in fact, not against guns, per se. They are against the people (common citizens) of having guns. They are all for the government having guns.

Lets call it what it is, they don't think the common people need or deserve protection from tyrannical governments, because they mistakenly believe that their government cannot possibly be a tyranny. I would love to round up all these people and force them into "first amendment zones" where we can control their speech, like the government tried to do in Nevada.

That's why climate change is a global thing.

Are people laboring under the belief that this will result in purely localized effects?

There is only one atmosphere, and if you screw it up, it's screwed up everywhere.

Easily the nicest thing I could say about him.

It is one of those stupid myths. "It takes two to make a fight." I would love to run into one of those experts in conflict resolution and just start slapping them. No sometimes people are just rotten and will take it out on you. It can be a bully or a neopagan KKK member at a Jewish Center with a gun.

What I do not understand is how this ruling happened? You have zero expectation of privacy in school. Students lockers and backpacks may be searched at anytime.
So a student recording this should be okay and the bullies should be punished as should the teacher.

California gave us Nixon.

Pssst ... as a fellow Canadian, I can tell you the exact same thing is happening here, unfortunately.

Our current government allows lobby groups (who themselves are mere puppets for the same groups in the US) to write the text of treaties and laws, when our environmental protections are being gutted in order to make it more efficient for businesses, and when you have a government which increasingly ignores some of the laws due to ideology ... we're well on our way to being equally fucked.

So, please, don't make us Canadians look all smug and douchy on the topic. Because the exact same thing is happening here.

My mistake then.

And California gave us Charles Manson and.... Well San Francisco.

The simple answer is for the tech companies to move. There are a lot of places that are nice that they could move to.
Texas: Austin, Dallas, and Houston are all thriving areas with a large tech presence.
Florida: Orlando, Melbourne, Tampa Bay area, and Palm Bay all have large tech companies not to mention NASA, UCF, and UF in Gainesville is not far away. In south Florida you have pretty much all of the south east Florida coast including Boca Raton the home of the PC. From Port St. Lucie south you have a lot of reasonable housing and a lot of biotech moving in as well.
North Carolina: The research triangle is pretty nice and home to Red Hat and SAS.
Or go crazy and head up to places like Kalispell MT which a great place to live and if you are into skiing you might like the winters. Not to mention the availability of near by wind power.
Or buy up large areas of Detroit and build or renovate lots of old housing.
Lots of great places to live in the US with low costs of living the fixation of the SF area isn't that healthy for industry. Frankly I fear the over abundance of wealth and venture capital in that one area is why you see lot of odd ball startups that fail while there maybe a group of really smart people in the University of Montana that have a really good idea that can not get funding.

Appropriately, the page with TFA has an ad encouraging me to "Win an AR-15 from Sebastian Ammo". Google is getting scary...

That's not Google. That contest is hosted on the same site as the story -- I actually hovered over the link to see where it went.

It's their own content.

Yes, the kid got charged because he violated Pennsylvania's wiretapping and recording laws. Pennsylvania is a two-party consent state so both parties to the conversation must consent before a recording can be made.

Yeah, and supposedly this school has a zero tolerance policy towards bullying.

And according to TFA, the bullying was happening in the class room, with a teacher present. Which means the school had more or less abandoned their role in policing this, and the kid was left with no other recourse.

Shortly thereafter, a loud noise is heard on the recording, which her son explained was a book being slammed down next to him after a student pretended to hit him in the head with it. When the teacher yells, the student exclaims, "What? I was just trying to scare him!" A group of boys are heard laughing.

What teacher can't be watching this in their own classroom and NOT understand that bullying was happening?

If the teacher who was physically in the room wasn't doing anything, WTF good is telling the school about it? Because the school is either indifferent, clueless, or incompetent to address the issue.

And the officer involved?? I would also say was incompetent or indifferent:

He later answered as to why he thought the disorderly conduct charge applied to this case by saying, "Because his (the student's) actions - he engaged in actions which served no legitimate purpose." He then read the statute as, "Creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by acts which serve no legitimate purpose."

I would say the legitimate purpose was to demonstrate that the bullying was, in fact happening, was happening while there was a teacher present, and that nothing at all was being done about it. He certainly didn't create a "hazardous or physically offensive condition". Sorry, but I think the cop was a fucking idiot.

I'm inclined to agree with the lawyer on this one. The police misapplied the statute here, forced the kid to destroy the evidence, and then didn't do a single thing about the problem.

And people wonder why kids go into school with guns? I can't even believe the story has a link to a contest to win an AR-15.

I read this whole story as a complete failure of the police and school to understand and deal with the actual issue here.

So, kid gathers evidence of bullying by other kids, gets charged?

That is insane.

So, if I take a video of someone stealing my car, would I get arrested? Under what circumstances could I do that and not be charged? WTF doesn't gathering evidence of bullying get an exemption from wiretap laws?

Whatever law enforcement and officers of the court were involved in this are total morons. This makes no sense at all.