if he built it himself, wouldn't he be able to give them any/all details they asked about?
I feel it was an appropriate response. much better than doing nothing, and a bomb getting detonated in a school. the threat is very real, and those that mean to do us harm with use any means necessary.
should we sit back on our hands and react to a situation AFTER it happens? or be proactive and prevent it?
This. And if it HAD been a situation where a bomb was detonated, people would be screaming
"Why wasn't this kid stopped or detained?"
If only we had the headline on 9/11:
"poor old Arab guy 'harassed' and arrested for having a box cutter..."
We're living in a different world than the one we lived in 20, 10 or even 5 years ago.
As far as handcuffing an "80-lb kid," if that kid can form a cognizant thought and has opposable thumbs, he
can kill you. It doesn't mean he will or even wants to, but it's happened before: very young, very old, or seemingly-"frail" individuals end up standing over the body of someone else. I knew a Customs Inspector who was killed by an elderly gentleman that had been stopped at the U.S. border over a tiny amount of marijuana. Frail old 'grandpa' pulled out a revolver while sitting in the secondary inspection area and wasted two people before he was killed. Be as indignant as you want - and roll the dice with
your life, if you choose to - but I'm going home at the end of every shift.
That means if I'm called to scene - having no previous knowledge about the people involved or what led up to me being called - and then told to question someone over an issue as potentially-serious as bombing a school, their hands will be under my control. I don't care if they're white, black, green or purple. Or whether they weigh 400 pounds or 40 (if it's an infant with wrists too small for cuffs, I have duct tape
)
Of course, it may not even matter: handcuffing someone who is being questioned over this kind of issue could be department policy, anyway.
