An Austin high school geography teacher has been arrested and charged with having marijuana and paraphernalia at his home, which is located within 1,000 feet of an elementary school.Since when does Austin PD seek search warrants for pot smokers? They'd have time to do nothing else if that were a common practice. It's worth mentioning they found less than a gram of pot, combined, scattered across three different locations in the house. Not exactly a kingpin, this fellow. Was this worth ruining the guy's life over - making him lose his job, trouncing him in the media? Who, if anyone, benefits?
Police had a search warrant for Ian Kristofer Grayson's single-family residence in the 6000 block of Leisure Run Road, located near Odom Elementary School.
Grayson, 34, has been a teacher at Austin High School since 2009, and from 2006 to 2009 he taught world history at International High School.
During the search, officers found .033 ounces of marijuana in two different glass containers and also in a trash container, which was empty except for the bag of pot and drug paraphernalia, according to Austin Police Department. Marijuana pipes, residue and other paraphernalia were found in various locations inside the home, including his bedroom, according to the arrest affidavit.
One doubts Grayson's students would say they're better off for his arrest. One former student commented on the KXAN site, "I remember Ian Grayson from when I went to Austin High because he gave me a hug on my last day there." Another student declared, "Gotta love how they fire the best history teacher at our school because of something so stupid as possession. I guess an illegal plant takes more priority over a good education."
Whaddya think? Should police be executing search warrants in private homes for petty pot violations? Was AISD right to put the fellow on administrative leave or should he be reinstated?
Voters and the press should demand all Austin mayoral and city council candidates address this question as we approach city elections in May. Notably, in recent years Austin PD has placed increasingly greater emphasis on marijuana enforcement, with the number of new pot cases increasing 69% from 2007 to 2010. One wonders, for what purpose? Does that really reflect the priorities City Council expects APD to be focused on?
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56 comments:
Here's an irony for ya: Today at 4:20, on 4/20, Austin will unveil an 8-foot statue of Willie Nelson. Maybe somebody should ask Willie his opinion of this teacher's arrest!
"Gotta love how they fire the best history teacher at our school because of something so stupid as possession. I guess an illegal plant takes more priority over a good education."
As our governor and legislators have proven over the last decade the answer is YES!!
I live in Maryland, and I can feel the safety all the way up here!
Of course, the 1,000-foot rule is nothing more than an arbitrary number created so that police and prosecutors can pile on charges.
Absolutely ridiculous!
More to this story than what we are getting here.
Did a student or co-worker get popped for possession then inform on the teacher?
Post the search warrant p/c affidavit.
"Should police be executing search warrants in private homes for petty pot violations?"
1) You're assuming facts not in evidence. How would the APB know that it was a petty pot violation (as opposed to a significant pot violation) before executing the search warrant? From the sounds of it ("Marijuana pipes, residue and other paraphernalia were found in various locations inside the home...") the "petty" part may have been a circumstance of timing.
2) It's not APD's fault that the legislature writes stupid laws. You might as well ask, "Should judges be signing search warrants for petty pot violations", "Should judges be signing arrest warrants for petty pot violoations", or "Should DA's be filing charges for petty pot violatons". It's the legistlature the establishes the laws, not the APD.
3) Granted the law is stupid. But the guy was breaking it, and APD became aware of that. What rules of discretion do you want APD to be working from in regard to enforcing and not enforcing laws?
Anon 3:06,
Rules of discretion? It's real simple. You don't bust people for pot.
Next question.
Might consider opening a head shop. Then truly do what he loves to do instead of wasting all his time and I.Q. teaching. Plus, everybody posting here to legalize pot can all go to his head shop and expound upon their "intelligence" born out of pothead paranoia. You know the paranoia that the system has nothing better to do than deprive every pot head of their beloved drug.
The guy should have chosen more wisely. He knew he was running a risk. He knew there would be consequences if he got caught. The actual consequences were pretty much exactly what you would expect, especially if you work in drug-free workplace.
I agree it's a lame-assed law. But I have no problem with APD enforcing if it's on the books.
If they bust every AISD employee that smokes dope, teachers, administrators, workers....they'll have to close the doors.
I work with Ian. He is a great guy and from what I understand a really great teacher... Lots of people lose from arresting a guy like this for such a minor offense... Very sad.
"It's the Law"
check your own pockets, bet your breaking the law too.
Got a couple of bills? 92% chance your have drugs on you. So turn yourself in because, "It's the law"
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073801004017
10 Million Illegal aliens breaking the law every day. Reggae fest this weekend where pot smoking is wide open. And we use police resources to raid a house with one gram of weed. Unbelievable.
I certainly don’t want to advocate for weed smoking anymore than I would smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol but I have to agree with a previous poster who writes there is more to the story. The ROI for APD to have acknowledged this person who appears to smoke a little weed seems odd. There has to be some bigger cost to society for APD to want to disrupt the life of a contributing member of society by converting this good teacher into a burden on society. Like the cost to society of alcohol and cigarette related deaths. Otherwise this is just another jack boot thug incident APD is becoming known for. We all know not to be seen in any multiracial adult-child relationships in Austin.
I thought it was about keeping Austin weird not making it whacko!
And to all you weed smokers, I’m writing this in past-tense for you people, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and if you can’t remember tell yourself you did. Happy 420 to Willie and the gang.
Here is a Wikipedia link that says about the same thing as the previous link if you have trouble with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency
If he had less than a gram of pot "in two different glass containers and also in a trash container," he was basically out of pot. That's not even personal stash amounts, they're sweeping up crumbs for an excuse to charge this guy! Pitiful!
Of course, we also have these that pertain to Texas teachers:
Texas Administrative Code
TITLE 19 EDUCATION
PART 7 STATE BOARD FOR EDUCATOR CERTIFICATION
CHAPTER 247 EDUCATORS' CODE OF ETHICS
RULE §247.2 Code of Ethics and Standard Practices for Texas Educators
(G) Standard 1.7. The educator shall comply with state regulations, written local school board policies, and other state and federal laws.
(L) Standard 1.12. The educator shall refrain from the illegal use or distribution of controlled substances and/or abuse of prescription drugs and toxic inhalants.
Be that as it may, 9:33, can you answer the question in the post: "Who, if anyone, benefits?"
Really I'd love to hear from anybody with a viable answer to that question.
The answer Grits, is nobody benefits from any of this. In fact, as a tax payer, I lose because those same officers executing this search warrant could have been searching for the children abducted by strangers, getting trained on less-than-lethal force techniques, improving educational opportunities for inmates in both state and federal custody, improving the opportunity to rebuild families of inmates, LESSENING FELONY CONVICTIONS FOR OYSTER OFFENCES, and I can go on and on. Let the teacher, with no priors, have his peace with the hippy lettus. Happy 420 day. And screw APD.
Legalize Marijuana for medical and/or recreational use (and I'd even argue that spiritual use language should be thrown in because I got high on some native Indian weed that would make your toes curl)- and tax it accordingly. Deficit? Not anymore I'd bet. Drug war? Half way won.
Low hanging fruit
Mr Grayson is a victim. He has no culpability in this what so ever? Victimless or not IT IS AGAINST THE LAW!! At what point do we need to start acting like adults.
I'm with 10;36, should he return to class on Monday and tell his students that they should only obey the laws they agree with?
Don't they have a dog to go shoot?
GFB - "Be that as it may, 9:33, can you answer the question in the post: "Who, if anyone, benefits?" Really I'd love to hear from anybody with a viable answer to that question."
But who benefits from answering stupid rhetorical questions?
First, I love the first comment to this post. Irony, indeed.
Second, I'd be interested to know the back story on this as well. There must be something that put him in the crosshairs of the APD. I doubt they sit around drawing names out of a hat to see who the next "lucky winner" is going to be. It's too early in the morning. I can't even visualize .033 of an ounce. Is that even a useable quantity?
Third, regardless of how one feels about marijuana laws (I lean heavily toward liberalization myself), one does assume the risk that there are going to be consequences for violating the law as it stands. It's hard enough for people to find jobs these days and I don't understand why a person would jeopardize his/her livelihood.
Finally, I can't answer Grits's ultimate question. That might depend on facts we're not privy to at this point. Or who you ask.
It's not rhetorical, 5:04, just because you don't have a good answer.
If the police are going to ruin my life, then I personally will ruin their life permanently by going after his entire family!
I remember in the good old days (1960s) the police planted pot on people they wanted to get rid of. Usually, it was a reefer in the jacket pocket that the police managed to find. The "left" jacket pocket IIRC, according to the breathless news items.
My bet is that the Austin police, or somebody important enough in the political system, had it in for Mr. Grayson, and that the Austin Police planted marijuana residue and paraphernalia in his home during the search and arrest.
The charge is due to fraudulent political corruption. Get used to it folks, our system is as bad as anything in China, India, or Russia.
Perhaps he didn't give a good enough grade to the offspring of a big real estate developer.
JDM, good comments, we must have hit publish about the same time.
When people are stopped randomly on the street, roughly 12-16% (pedestrian to auto) are committing a crime. (12% is the proportion of NYC stop and frisks resulting in arrest or summons, 16% the proportion at TX DL/insurance checkpoints.) So while I agree the fellow assumed a risk, I also think if police chose to comprehensively enforce the law on everyone who broke it, it would bankrupt all levels of government in a heartbeat. There should be some discretion exercised when we're talking about barely measurable amounts in someone's home.
And RAS, if APD hadn't trumpeted the arrest in the media, he wouldn't need to tell his class anything. But they decided it was better to publicly humiliate him, cost him his job, etc., instead. Again I wonder, who benefits?
I feel SO much safer here in Houston, now tat they got this DANGEROUS pothead off the streets !!! (Insert sarcasm HERE !!!)
"If they bust every AISD employee that smokes dope, teachers, administrators, workers....they'll have to close the doors."
Hell, if they busted every Texas police officer/prosecutor that smokes dope... Well, you get the idea.
Why pick on teachers and why this teacher? Perhaps, he shared the joy a little too freely and someone's parental unit got their underwear in a bunch.
Tweets
The long arm of the law caught a teacher's aide here last week for the same thing. Read what the cop says in this story. The retard makes it out to be The Crime Of The Century: http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/cleveland/news/new-caney-teacher-s-aide-arrested-on-narcotics-charges/article_0615ed0d-bbb2-5a15-ab8b-afc0eb464780.html
Anonymous 10:36. We have duty to ignore, violate, escape, subvert and work to repeal bad laws. I suppose if soft drinks were made illegal you would think it justified for Dr Pepper drinkers to be arrested. You can at least speak out against bad laws rather than rely on the tyrannical rubric "It's the Law." That's how we lose everything.
The discussion here is between "what is fair" or "proportional" versus "it's against the law". English law created two courts, courts of equity and courts of law. Courts of equity dealt with "Is it fair?," while courts of law followed the Common Law tradition of Stare Decisis which is a "cookie cutter" form of justice where the courts look only to whether the conduct falls under a statute or a previous court decision.
The Framers of the Constitution combined both types under the federal courts in Article III, Section 2, "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity...". The States follow the same practice. The problem is that the tradition of courts of equity have been forgotten.
Legal training in the U.S. reenforces the view that the only question to consider is "Is is Legal?" When one adds this legal history to the cultural and religious beliefs of Puritanism or Old Testament Christianity in this country that wonders why Jesus was so mad at the Pharisees, you have a recipe for the case discussed here. With Courts of Equity gone in practice, there are no judges left who would challenge this case on the issue of "fairness". Only the Jury system remains as a check on unfair laws and unfair law enforcement. This role of the jury is explained the classic Kalven and Zeisel, "The American Jury" A jury that looks at the "big picture" or fairness upsets the "it is illegal" modern day Pharisees who would likely condemn a jury who doesn't strictly follow the instructions of the judge as "jury nullification."
The end of alcohol prohibition came about largely because jurors stopped convicting defendants of possessing and distributing it. The killers of "revenuers" were usually hailed as heroes and were often aided by entire communities in their successful attempts to avoid prosecution.
This "war on drugs" has always been a one-sided war with the other side not shooting back, but hopefully that will change once our neighbors from the south send in their assassins.
Americans have always been willing to die for their freedom, but we have been far too easy on those who would take it from us. If freedom is worth dying for, then surely it's worth killing for too...
This is just plain nuts .... smoking a little pot on his own spare time is no ones problem they it was in his home not his school desk!!
Grits asked:
"Be that as it may, 9:33, can you answer the question in the post: Who, if anyone, benefits? Really I'd love to hear from anybody with a viable answer to that question."
Anyone who wants to live in a law-abiding society benefits. If you don't want to live in such a society, I suppose you could yearn for the days of the wild west where you could make your own laws with a six-gun, and refuse to follow anyone else's laws by just shooting it out in the street.
@Grits "When people are stopped randomly on the street, roughly 12-16% (pedestrian to auto) are committing a crime. "
Important clarification - when stopped randomly 12-16% are CAUGHT committing a crime.
1:00, what does arresting this guy for .033 oz of pot have to do with preventing shootouts in the street? Marijuana enforcement is not gun control.
1:09, why do you find that clarification "important"? (I find it trivial.) Do you think the real number is even higher? If so, that only reinforces my point.
This is the equivalent of arresting a teacher for driving 3 mph over the speed limit in a school zone. Yes it's a law. Yes, he's a school teacher and should know better than to do that. But, the law is selectively enforced; typically reserved for the more egregious violations. Does the guy deserve to lose his job over it? No.
Also, I find it funny that the same people who are freaking out about government spending are the ones supporting complete wastes of time and money like this was. It's not like he got pulled over for reckless driving and then they found pot in his car. This police department went out of their way obtain a search warrant. And god only knows how many officers showed up to execute the warrant. This is where our priorities lie? Really? I wonder how many of these officers have ever driven home after a few cocktails with over the legal limit of alcohol in their system. Surely, police never make the decision to let another officer off of a DUI because it would unnecessarily ruin a career, right? Hmmm.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” [Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonapatre, Chapter 1.]
This is the second time that Austin students have lost a talented and caring teacher named Mr. Grayson, although we can only hope this farcical time is not permanent. John Daniel Christian, then a Murchison student, now a lawyer, fatally shot his teacher Rod Grayson one May day in 1978. We (Texans) gave the lethal injection to David Powell for a murder committed on the same day, but most people have forgotten (or never knew about) Rod Grayson and his shooter. Very, very, sad. If you pray, pray for Ian Grayson.
Gritsforbreakfast said...
"1:00, what does arresting this guy for .033 oz of pot have to do with preventing shootouts in the street? Marijuana enforcement is not gun control."
This is a poor dodge on your part, Grits. It's not about gun control. It's about laws and obeying them, and applying them equally. If you don't have that, then all you will have is lawlessness.
This police department went out of their way obtain a search warrant. And god only knows how many officers showed up to execute the warrant.
When I hear this I have to wonder what they were really trying to get him for.
Not a dodge, 11:07, just an observation that this had NOTHING to do with preventing shootouts in the street.
The reason the police go after pot users is because there are so many of them. Target just a few citizens, you're bound to find a little marijuana on one of them. Nobody seems to care about Willie's joints. Could be because joint users DON'T HURT ANYONE, don't usually carry a gun, and it's so easy to get a conviction on your record if you're a cop.
Grits ask Who Benefits from this pig headed foolishness?
People like RAS and his pedophile baboons at TJJD, the state job corps, TDCJ, and the communist who masquerade as law abiding citizen.
How do they benefit, by removing impediments from the pipeline to prison public school system. A good teacher and or school administrator is an impediment to feeding our state prison system. This teacher is being set as an example, that if your good, the jack boot communist tough on crime agenda will take you out of the schools. Who knows how many kids this good teacher diverted from the pedophilic dormitories of tddj, part of a caseload for academic wash outs feeding their lust as sex offender therapist, or being subjected to chimpanzees who do drug testing? Too many jobs in the core are at stake to have good teachers in our pubic schools.
Good teachers get in the way of a well oiled criminal processing system, and there is way too many jobs at stake to let that happen.
Perhaps people should search for the truth before making a judgement. Grits' story is not accurate (no suprise there). According to the Austin American Statesman, the search warrant was part of an "ongoing AISD criminal case" of the teacher by AISD Police, not by the APD. Here's the link:
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2012/04/19/austin_teacher_arrested_charge.html
Is this a good time to say vote for Ron Paul and end this madness?
Like I said there had to be more to it. A search warrent executed due to an on going investigation by AISD. The school distric barney's can do search warrents?!
Ian Grayson is Rod Grayson's son...Ian was a baby when he lost his father, Rod...student (now attorney) John Daniel Christian fatally shot Rod Grayson in class in 1978...Ian grew up without a father and chose teaching as his vocation...an honorable decision...perhaps part of a family's legacy of being teachers...for whatever reason, a good man and a good teacher have been destroyed for such a silly offense...it is silly...no matter what the law states...a reasonable person cannot justify losing one's life and purpose for such an insignificant charge...for a man whose father, a teacher, was killed by a student and then followed in those same footsteps out of a desire to offer something to our students to be treated in such a manner...it is sad and sickening...and it is a loss for Austin...
This is the second time that Austin students have lost a talented and caring teacher named Mr. Grayson, although we can only hope this farcical time is not permanent. John Daniel Christian, then a Murchison student, now a lawyer, fatally shot his teacher Rod Grayson one May day in 1978. We (Texans) gave the lethal injection to David Powell for a murder committed on the same day, but most people have forgotten (or never knew about) Rod Grayson and his shooter. Very, very, sad. If you pray, pray for Ian Grayson.
Here's a little about Ian Grayson's teaching philosophy...the last 14 seconds of his role as a teacher make me sad that we lost a great teacher for a silly little infraction...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m4Z2xZA2CU
4:24, your beef is with KXAN - they were the source here. Still doesn't justify his arrest, firing, etc. unless the AISD investigation makes.
12:22, that's an amazing and terrible coincidence. Wow.
He wasn't even his!!!! (Inside)
How about the crack house 10 miles away? Or the synthetic cannabinoids at the gas station the kids are using?!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
here are the latest developments
http://austinist.com/2012/04/25/aisd_teachers_pot_arrest_now_has_mo.php
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