Opinion ID: 1611761
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: douglas d.

Text: ¶ 85. The record before this court reveals much more about Douglas D. than the majority has disclosed. This information is highly relevant to how persons who knew Douglas and his background reacted to his alleged threat. ¶ 86. In October 1998, 13-year-old Douglas D. was a troubled young man. He was [______]. He had [______________]. He had developed a pattern of skipping school and [______________]. On [______________], he was adjudicated delinquent for [______________]. This adjudication occurred in [______] 1998. [4] ¶ 87. Douglas began a new school term on August 24, 1998. His eighth-grade English teacher, Mrs. [C.], was starting her first full year of teaching. Mrs. [C.], who was known to her students as Mrs. C., had disciplinary problems with Douglas. ¶ 88. On Monday, October 5, 1998, Mrs. [C.] commenced a creative writing project in her English class. She asked each student to write a story. After reviewing the stories, Mrs. [C.] was to give each story to another student who would add to it, then to a third student, and finally to a student who would finish the story. Douglas was not given this assignment until Wednesday, October 7, because he was absent from class on Monday and Tuesday. ¶ 89. Doug refused to start the story, Mrs. [C.] later testified. He wanted to talk and visit with his friends and disrupt the class. Mrs. [C.] said that Douglas was disrupting the other students in the class, continually talking...and making gestures and saying funny things...and clowning around. Consequently, Mrs. [C.] sent him out into the hallway to work on the assignment. ¶ 90. When Douglas returned to class, he gave Mrs. [C.] his story. She panicked when she saw what he had written. He wrote that he was going to cut my head off with a machete, she said. I had...never received anything like that before....I felt my life was in danger. ¶ 91. Immediately after class, Mrs. [C.] called vice principal [______________] to explain the situation. [The vice principal] read the story and considered it a veiled threat. In my opinion the paper rose to the level of threatening one of our staff members, he said at trial. [5] ¶ 92. [The vice principal] promptly notified [______________], the juvenile caseworker for the Oconto County Department of Human Services who had been assigned to Douglas as a result of [______]. [The caseworker] did not interview Douglas until the following day, however, because Douglas had run away. When Douglas was taken into custody, he was placed in secure detention. [The caseworker] said at trial that Douglas admitted to him that the Mrs. C. in his story was Mrs. [C.]. Shortly thereafter, in a different proceeding, [the caseworker] recommended to the court that [______________]. ¶ 93. These are the facts. All these facts were known to Judge Delforge before trial because of Douglas's prior delinquency proceeding in front of the same judge, which included [______________]. [6] There is explicit discussion of Douglas's prior delinquency in the trial record. Even if Mrs. [C.] had been unaware of Douglas's entire history and prior delinquency determination, she was certainly cognizant of his discipline problems in class and his frequent truancy. Plainly, [the vice principal] had knowledge of Douglas's juvenile record. ¶ 94. At trial, Douglas denied that his story mentioning Mrs. C. was directed at Mrs. [C.], although at one point he blurted out, I was meaning it for her, before he corrected himself. He admitted he wasn't happy she kicked me out in the hall, but he claimed under oath that he wasn't really sure if Mrs. [C.] went by the name of Mrs. C. I never really heard her be called that, he testified. ¶ 95. At the conclusion of the trial the circuit judge made the following determination: [T]here is absolutely no social value achieved by the juvenile's conduct in completing an assignment. ..that makes a direct threat to his teacher. That is not the type of activity that is allowed either under the First Amendment or any other right that a student has in a classroom.... There is no question that this is a direct threat to the teacher....It's not the type of action that we're going to allow in our classrooms. The court found that Douglas's writing did cause and provoke a disturbance as Mrs. [C.] was very upset at receiving and reading Douglas's story. The court said there was no other way it could view Douglas's story than as a direct threat to his teacher, Mrs. [C.]. Mrs. C and Mrs. [C.] are one in the same. ¶ 96. The threat assessment analysis in The School Shooter tends to substantiate the circuit court's determinations, particularly when the focus is placed upon Douglas, the threatener. For instance, The School Shooter lists many factors to consider in evaluating a student under Prong One of its threat assessment test: Personality Traits and Behavior. Some of these factors include: (1) Low tolerance for frustration; (2) Injustice Collector (The student nurses resentment over real or perceived injustices.); (3) Narcissism (The student is self-centered, lacks insight into others' needs and/or feelings, and blames others for failures and disappointments.); (4) Exaggerated Sense of Entitlement; (5) Exaggerated or Pathological Need for Attention; (6) Externalizes Blame (The student consistently refuses to take responsibility for his or her own actions and typically faults other people, events or situations for any failings or shortcomings.); (7) Anger Management Problems; (8) Inappropriate Humor; (9) Change of Behavior; (10) Unusual Interest in Sensational Violence; and (11) Behavior Appears Relevant to Carrying Out a Threat. The School Shooter, supra, at 17-21 (numerals added and factors omitted). ¶ 97. Some of the factors to consider under Prong Two of the threat assessment test, Family Dynamics, include: (1) Turbulent Parent-Child Relationship (The student's relationship with his parents is particularly difficult or turbulent. This difficulty or turbulence can be uniquely evident following a variety of factors, including recent or multiple moves, loss of a parent, addition of a step parent, etc. He expresses contempt for his parents and dismisses or rejects their role in his life. There is evidence of violence occurring within the student's home.); (2) Lack of Intimacy (The family appears to lack intimacy and closeness. The family has moved frequently and/or recently.). Id. at 21 (numerals added and factors omitted). ¶ 98. Mrs. [C.], [the vice principal], [the caseworker], and Judge Delforge all had first-hand knowledge of Douglas D. Judge Delforge had a full report on Douglas's family history before the trial in this case because of the prior proceedings dealing with Douglas. Consequently, it is not unreasonable to believe that Judge Delforge and the other principal figures in this case considered many of the factors enumerated in the threat assessment manual as each of them evaluated Douglas's conduct. Most of the listed factors are applicable to Douglas's case. It is manifest that the teacher, the vice principal, the juvenile caseworker, the assistant district attorney, the circuit judge, and the court of appeals took Douglas's story seriously and considered it to be a threat to Mrs. [C.].