Rolling Meadows High School student charged in connection with knife threat

An 18-year-old Rolling Meadows High School student faces two felony charges after allegedly threatening to harm others with a knife, authorities said. I couldn’t copy the Dailly Herald’s text, but the kid was threatening to harm others. He had two knives on his person, but was not showing either.

You have to wonder, what was going on in the kid’s head… How sick is he? What has happened to him? And what happens to him now? What will Cook County do to him now?

I was at a client’s one day back when Frank was about 9 in 3^rd grade. He had just moved up here from Normal. The front office ladies were wonderful, and they got flowers often. The principal was named Dr. Carmen. It took all three of them to get Frank in school as I only had I business day’s notice that he was moving up here. But that’s a different story altogether.

So anyway, I’m at a clients in the city and my phone rings and it says “North School”. So I answer it “Scott here, what did he do?”. And Dr. Carmen says to me, “Mr. Livingston, we have a situation here.” And I’m thinking, a) she always calls me Scott and b) situation? What the fuck is a SITUATION? Is running through my head. “Ok Dr. Carmen, share please.” I say to her. She goes on to tell me that Frank brought a paring knife to school with him. And that during lunch he walked up to one of the teachers and asked them to help him peel his grapefruit. “That’s it?” I asked. “That sounds pretty innocent to me, it’s not like he threatened the teacher, right?”. “It was a knife, that’s all that counts.” She said. “Ok, what do we do now?” I asked. She went on to inform me that she would have to send out a letter to all parents notifying them of the incident and next Frank would have to be suspended for a semester. My jaw dropped. “Six months?”. “That’s the guideline. Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about it.” She said.

I arrived at North School about an hour later to find Dr. Carmen waiting for me. “Ok” she said “Here’s where we are at this point.” And I wondered just how bad it would get. “I wrote a letter of reference for Frank to the superintendent. I offered a thirty minute after school detention during which Frank would run errands for the staff for thirty school days. And he agreed.” She said happily. I was relieved.

Once I got Frank and his side of the story made more sense. Yes, a 3” paring knife is not standard school issue, but he had a valid idea; how to peel his grapefruit. The problem is that he asked Dr. Goul, the school shrink that doesn’t like him. He ended up having a lot of fun with the front office ladies for those 30 days. Now we can just laugh at it.

When I was about 16, I was hitting garage sales in Northbrook one Saturday when I found a 10” butcher’s cleaver. The blade was all rusty, but the handle was perfect. I knew what to do with the blade, and I soaked it naval jelly until all the rust was off. Then, I took it to school where I had metals class. In metals shop was a belt sander. I sanded the blade until it shone and was razor sharp. Metals was my second class, so I carried the cleaver with me throughout the rest of the day. It garnered a lot of attention. In my last class, social studies, my teacher took me aside and said “Is it really a good idea to carry that around in school?”. Uh, um…