The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was trashed this past week after a group of students from Junior High School 292 in East New York hurled various pieces of trash in its fountains while showing no respect for the monument .
The students were kicked off the site after they began disrespecting its reflecting pools which were put in place to honor nearly 3,000 people who were killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Eighth-grader Anthony Price, 14, told the NY Daily News:
“They kicked us out because of littering in the water. Kids were throwing baseballs in the pond thing.”
Also thrown into the reflecting pools were plastic soda bottles and various other items reported to police by witnesses.
At one point students were making jokes about the memorial while throwing their used items into the reflecting pools.
While some students were offended by the antics, at least some of the offending students thought it was completely acceptable because they were “bored.” As one student noted:
“No one was disrespecting. It wasn’t nothing like that. No one was being serious. Everyone was kind of bored and it was just something to do.”
The 9/11 Memorial for the most part has been a place of remembrance and it has largely been respected, however at least one incident happened last year when a Tennessee woman was arrested as she tried to carry a loaded handgun into the memorial.
Children disrespecting a 9/11 memorial, high school kids bullying a school bus monitor , perhaps its time that we bring back spankings without the threat of parental imprisonment or CPS actions.
