Secret Service explains response to teen's art

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Last week, Secret Service agents paid a visit to Prosser to try to answer an unusual question: Was the high-school freshman who turned in a drawing of President Bush with his head on a stake a threat?

The district office of the Secret Service in Washington state declined to comment except to say its actions weren't out of the ordinary.

"This is not something unique to Washington, and this is not something unique to the times that we live in," said Wallace Shields, special agent in charge of the district. "If we get what someone reports to be a threat against any person or place we protect, we investigate it."

Shields said it is unlawful to threaten the president's life. The job of the Secret Service is to determine whether there is an actual threat or danger; if so, the information is turned over to proper authorities, which could include local police or the U.S. Attorney's Office.

"The drawing in itself is not the threat," Shields explained. "It's the intent behind it and the capability of the person to act upon it."

The boy was just being a smart aleck, said Kevin Cravens, who is still troubled over the way authorities handled the incident. "This is just totally crazy," said Cravens, a friend of the student's family, likening the response to something out of George Orwell's "1984."

For art class, the 15-year-old had turned in a journal of his drawings that started a frantic chain reaction reaching all the way to the federal government. First, the art teacher showed a vice principal, who was concerned enough to call the Prosser police, who in turn called the Secret Service to investigate.

One drawing showed a Middle Eastern man, an AK-47 rifle, and an oversized head of President Bush on a stick. Another called for the end to the Iraq war.

Prosser Police Chief Win Taylor was quoted saying that school officials had a right to be concerned.

The boy is not being named because he has not been charged with a crime. His mother has declined to comment.
 
The school superintendent did not return phone messages. But according to previous news reports, the school disciplined the boy.

Cravens said the boy's real problem is that he just doesn't fit in with the Prosser crowd. The boy sports a Mohawk and plays in a punk-rock band, and that isn't exactly the norm out in Benton County, he said. "It definitely doesn't help his case."

Doug Honig, spokesman for American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington, said a Vietnam War-era Supreme Court ruled that a youth does not give up his civil rights when he enters school. As recently as February, the Washington State Supreme Court echoed that sentiment and ruled that a boy who had joked about shooting people was not guilty of a crime because it was not a "true threat."

However, Honig also said that doesn't mean schools have no right to regulate what students can and cannot say. They can impose limits on students when there's a threat to safety or a disruption to the learning environment.

Which category the Prosser case falls into depends on whether it appears the school overreacted — for example, by calling the police instead of simply calling the student into the office for a talk — and whether the police and Secret Service had a legitimate cause to investigate.

Honig said the ACLU is investigating the facts of the case before determining whether to get involved.

As for the boy, Cravens said, "He thinks it's all funny.

"This is just a kid with some stupid cartoon."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562

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