An 11-year-old student in Florida is facing charges after refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and creating a disturbance in the classroom, police said.
The boy was arrested for causing a disruption and refusing repeated instructions from school staff and law enforcement, Polk County Public Schools spokesperson Kyle Kennedy said in a statement. He was not arrested for refusing to participate in the pledge – even though students have the right to do so by Florida law and district policy.
The sixth-grader from a Tampa suburb allegedly told his substitute teacher the flag is "racist" and the national anthem is offensive to black people, Bay News 9 reported, citing a statement the teacher gave the district.
In response, the teacher said she asked the student why not go to another place to live if it was "so bad here." She said he answered, "They brought me here."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... 900253002/
That's how USA Today chose to report the incident.
He's arrested for refusing to say the pledge!!!
But if you keep on reading (which most NPCs never do), you will come across this gem:
Dhakira Talbot, the boy’s mother, told Bay News 9 that she wants the charges dropped. She denied the arrest affidavit accusing her son of threatening to beat the teacher, the station reported.
Did you see that?
The lede has the boy "An 11-year-old student in Florida is facing charges after refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and creating a disturbance in the classroom".
But buried down below in the story, you have this weird comment that the boy's mother denies the arrest affidavit accusing her son of "threatening to beat the teacher".
The story gives the impression that the boy was arrested for refusing to say the pledge or, at worst, causing a disruption. But the arrest affidavit seems to indicate criminal behavior, and the only way you would even know that from the story is an offhand comment that the mother denies the allegation.
Now.. I am not interested in debating the story itself. Arresting 11 year old boys in school for shit like this is silly. My problem is with the obvious fake news aspect of how this story is being twisted to fit a leftist narrative.