Teachers, what signs did you get that a student would go on to be a horrifying criminal?

Lots of my students are in gangs. A few have been arrested for some pretty serious stuff, including popping or shanking people.

Sad to say, but at an inner city school, I'm not entirely shocked when kids from our district are in the paper for any sort of crime.

The schools try to do something about it when the kids are young, but it's tough when their

dads or uncles or neighbors are in gangs.

Teacher of middle school here, had a weird kid, he was nice to everyone, but when nobody

was watching, he'd make his hands into a strangling motion.

Sometime in the year we got a pet hamster and somebody could look after it. A week later, the hamster was dead with a broken neck. When I asked who it was, it was clear that it was the kid because of the way he looked. He looked guilty, but I said nothing, as I had no evidence. Fast forward ten years, and it turns out he's in jail. What for? Shanking a mother of two for her purse.

I've had one former student tried as an accessory to capital murder and another awaiting trial

for capital murder. In both cases, the crimes were very violent and all over the news, and in both

cases, I wasn't that surprised when I heard about it. However, there was no time when I looked at

either boy and thought, well, he's going to kill someone one day. What I did think was that they were

probably going to pop off at the wrong person at some point and end up in jail or shot. Both boys were

very disrespectful to both teachers and other students. They could be charming, but they had hair-trigger

tempers and a great

dislike of having to follow any rules. However, I've had many students like that that grow out

of it. I don't look at any student who's a discipline problem and automatically assume he or she

will be a murderer. It sucks when it happens, though. There was this kid who went to my school

all the way from age 5 to age 17.

I invited him to a couple of my birthday parties in this time.

At my 10th birthday party he purposely knocked my cake off the table before anyone could have a piece.

At my 13th he broke a window and set some paper on fire indoors.

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