Lunchroom Lunacy: Cops Investigate $2 Bill Spent on School Lunch

[villager]

<snip>

When the Fort Bend ISD police investigated the $2 bill with the vigor of an episode of Dragnet, even though at that school 82-percent of kids are poor enough to get free or reduced price lunch.

The alleged theft of $2 worth of chicken tenders led a campus officer -- average salary $45,000 a year -- to the convenience store that gave grandma the $2 bill.

Next stop -- and these are just the facts -- the cop went to a bank to examine the bill.

Finally, the mystery was solved: The $2 bill wasn't a fake at all. It was real.

The bill so old, dating back to 1953, the school's counterfeit pen didn't work on it.

"He brought me my two dollar bill back," Joseph said. 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."

Joseph said something needs to change so kids don't have felonies looming over their heads for minor crimes -- or actions that aren't even crimes at all.

<snip>

There is concerning outlier when examining the statistics. Ted Oberg Investigates could not find a single white student suspect in these documents. There is one in Cy-Fair, but he is 27 years old and not a student. All the rest were largely black and to a lesser extent, Hispanic.

No district wanted to weigh in on why that was.

"We see a disproportionate impact on minority youth when it comes to these charges," attorney Mani Nezami said. "African-American and Hispanic boys in particular, but girls as well, tend to be overcriminalized for offenses that one might speculate if they weren't, they wouldn't be seeing a criminal charge."

It's unclear if all the students tagged for forgery are minorities. In the 29 pages of Cy-Fair ISD police records, abc13 found five students investigated who were listed as black, three students investigated listed as Hispanic, another whose race was listed as "E." There are 15 reports with no race listed.

Investigating student forgeries for using small bill in a lunch line does not appear to be letting up.

<snip>


The Rest

[raging moderate]

1. How can we send money to Daneishia?

This should not happen again!

[AwakeAtLast]

21. Great question!

I agree!

[killbotfactory]

2. Surprise, she's a black kid. nt

[HooptieWagon]

3. Assuming anyone would forge a 1953 $2 bill is the height of idiocy.

[villager]

4. "Height of idiocy" seems to be what qualifies you for the school cop position. nt

[etherealtruth]

6. A prerequisite fr the position

[Person 2713]

5. Total racist bullshit poor kid . Hope taxpayers enjoy picking up the investigation tab

[malaise]

7. Iknew the kid was black

The aim is to shame - to humiliate - to terrorize.

[forest444]

8. This very thing should happen to Paul Singer and the rest of the vulture banksters.

?w=590

[bluestateguy]

9. Get cops out of schools

A cop traipsing around a school campus will only want to look for trouble where there is no trouble to justify his job.

[hfojvt]

10. they looked at investigations for forgery

they didn't say if they were $2 bills or $5 bills or large denominations. If some kids are passing fake tens or hundreds, well that is a serious crime.

[cui bono]

20. Geebus. Way to try to squeeze in the propaganda that kids are criminals.

Where did you get the idea that "some kids are passing fake tens or hundreds"? Why would you even bring that up?
The crime here is racism, not phony money.

If some DU posters named hfojvt are beating their children, well that's a serious crime.

.

[mnhtnbb]

11. When I was a kid in the 50's, my dad would bring home $2 bills for fun.

Stories like this infuriate me.

[Mariana]

24. When I was a kid in the 70's, my dad did the same thing

after they started issuing the $2's again. Back then, though, everyone knew they were real.

My dad liked Eisenhower dollars, too. He got rolls of them at the bank and he used them.

[greymouse]

12. If I were counterfitting

I'd go for ten dollar bills. It would take a long time to make any money off this with two dollar bills. Twenty dollar bills probably get noticed. Just saying, in case anyone wants to take up a life of crime

What the heck is going on there that they're scanning lunchroom money? Has anyone paying with cash in this thread ever had their money examined for forgery?

[FuzzyRabbit]

13. Never had my cash examined. But I'm white, and of course whites

never use counterfeit money. </snark>

[mikehiggins]

16. The crime here is racism, not phony money

Counterfeiters on a massive scale, such as some other nations, reproduce our 20 and 100 dollar bills with ridiculous frequency. AFAIK 10's and 50's aren't so popular, the 10's because its not as popular and the 50's because people are more aware of them for some reason.

All that being so, if it is, there is no reason to haul a young girl out of school to check a $ 2 bill.

Except for her skin color.

This is just another example of the institutional racism that infects this nation. Both HRK and Senator Sanders have made note of this in their campaigns, which is a start to say the least.

[RoccoR5955]

14. The dumbass probably didn't think that a two dollar bill exists!

And the stupid cop believed it.

[KT2000]

15. Assface cop should come to Washington

and ride the state ferry system. They are loaded with $2 bills and they usually come with change to passengers.

Apology needed now! And it needs to include the fact that the cop was ignorant and the little girl did nothing wrong.
That child is going to remember that humiliation her whole life. They need to do everything they can to make it right.

[rickford66]

17. Depending upon condition, the bill may be worth more than $2

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. I don't know about the bill's specific condition, but ...

... apparently now it has a mark on it from the "counterfeit-detecting pen".

[left-of-center2012]

19. Yes -- they do exist

Today, there is a common misconception by the public that the $2 bill is no longer in circulation. According to the Treasury: "The $2 bill remains one of our circulating currency denominations... As of April 30, 2007 there were $1,549,052,714 worth of $2 bills in circulation worldwide."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_two-dollar_bill

[Lurker Deluxe]

25. Hard to believe in Houston

It would be very difficult to have lived in Houston and the surrounding area for any period of time and not know there are two dollar bills.

http://www.cdscrapmetal.com/gallery.html
http://www.cdscrapmetal.com/videos.html

C&D Scrap metal advertises relentlessly and both TV and radio that they will buy your scrap metal and PAY YOU WITH TWO DOLLAR BILLS!!!!

Very little chance that any adult would not know this.

[AwakeAtLast]

22. Fund school lunches for every child

If we dropped one F-35 I bet it would pay for them.

[cyberswede]

23. The school has a counterfeit pen?

Good lord.

[obamanut2012]

28. I thought that, too

[elleng]

26. OMFG!

Get us OUTTA here!

[Warren DeMontague]

27. They REALLY wanted their two dollars.

TWO DOLLARS!

[Orrex]

29. Counterfeit pens are famously unreliable

to the point that you're better off biting the corner of a bill to assess its genuineness.

Beyond that, what kind of idiot bureaucracy would waste a day of a full time idiot's salary to investigate a real $2 bill?

[Liberal In Texas]

30. Local cops investigating possible forgery?

I thought this stuff was always turned over the the Treasury. It's a Fed problem.