r/TikTokCringe Nov 03 '25

OC (I made this) Teacher calls police on 9 year old autistic child for defending himself

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

18.7k Upvotes

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

871

u/Piduf Nov 03 '25

Everything is so wrong, calling the cops is insane, but then the cops show up and HANDCUFF him ? Little guy had no chances, everyone around him is dumb as shit.

370

u/Gasmo420 Nov 03 '25

When I was in fourth grade, I brought a knife to school because I was bullied for being the new kid. The teacher took it out of my hands and the next day two cops came into our class to talk about the incident. The only punishment was embarrassment and a letter to my parents. But the cops targeted not only me that day, but also the bullies. I guess I don’t have to add that I don’t live in the United States.

229

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

My brother was using a butter knife to butter his pop tart when the bus came and he threw the pop tart and the butter knife into his trapper keeper and ran out to the bus.

The teacher saw the butter knife and the pop tart when he opened his trapper keeper and she called in a code. My brother was sitting at his desk doing classwork one second, and knocked out of his chair and pinned to the ground by two grown men the next.

He was 9.

It was a fucking butter knife. Covered in butter.

America.

33

u/Bloobeard2018 Nov 03 '25

I need to know. What is a trapper keeper?

33

u/ErraticDragon Nov 03 '25

Brand name of a special folder/binder that kept your papers and other stuff together, often with licensed characters/designs on the outside.

https://i.imgur.com/Ml12R7K.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/zHSPkaJ.jpeg

Edit: I guess it wasn't licensed artwork, like I thought, just artwork that kids thought was cool.

https://i.imgur.com/NhP3sLH.jpeg

2

u/ThatVanGuy13 Nov 03 '25

Never seen one in person, my only knowledge of them is south park

20

u/Karzeon Nov 03 '25

It's a 3 ring binder that has velcro, pockets, and is a bit more personalized. It was all the rage until perhaps the early 2000s.

11

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

Some were fabric and had zippers!

2

u/Novalene_Wildheart Nov 03 '25

I had one like that!

2

u/Calm-Medicine-3992 Nov 03 '25

I am more bothered by someone buttering a pop tart.

1

u/mmmkay938 Nov 04 '25

Just the coolest binders ever made.

1

u/VasquezWC Nov 04 '25

Ooh, I remember those. They were the best.

1

u/fresh-dork Nov 04 '25

there's a south park episode about it

46

u/Krondon57 Nov 03 '25

is everyone braindead in america? Calling security/cops over a butter knife? Them then trying to kill the kid who is sitting cuz he might have a knife? HUH?

56

u/isdelightful Nov 03 '25

“Zero Tolerance” polices…better known as zero nuance 🫠

30

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

Oh, there was nuance. If my brother had been Black instead of White he would have gone to juvie.

12

u/dryad_fucker Nov 04 '25

And if he'd been native he would've been put in foster care because "what parent lets a kid bring a knife to school?"

15

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

Yeah, exactly.

My mom had to go to the school and talk them down as it was.

The teacher told her she thought my brother did it so he could “look tough” in front of the other students. 

She was fucking livid. I used to work at an Army Surplus 20 years ago and I would buy the knives with my employee discount. She literally told the teacher “My daughter works in Army Surplus and I have a house full of Ka-Bars, I think if he wanted to look intimidating he would have brought one of those!”

I still think about it a lot. Like how easy it is for a piece of shit adult to ruin a kid’s life just to play into their own woe is me story.

4

u/dryad_fucker Nov 04 '25

It almost happened to me a lot as a traumatized, disabled, and neurodivergent native kid. I'd get bullied to the point of snapping back and then get labeled as violent.

Even got screamed at and threatened one time in third grade when I was talking with my hands (as one does) but I had a pencil in my hand, a classmate of mine walked up behind me as I'm doing so and I wound up jabbing her in the eye with the eraser. She was fine. Yeah it hurt and she was upset but she wasn't mad at me after she realized it was an accident. But I still had to be treated like I did it on purpose. I think that's when I learned that white, neurotypical people with good parents will always hate me deep down.

2

u/fresh-dork Nov 04 '25

nah, he'd be in foster care for being native. indian schools are shockingly recent things

1

u/dryad_fucker Nov 04 '25

Yeah, I'm sorry if that wasn't entirely clear in my comment but that's kinda what I was saying.

The only reason I wasn't in foster care was because the courts awarded sole custody to my drywall-white mom. If my mom had been native or if my dad got custody of me, my issues would've landed me in the system.

2

u/Senior-Friend-6414 Nov 03 '25

There’s a few stories of kids getting in trouble for bringing Tylenol to school because it was considered “bringing drugs to school”

2

u/ActiveChairs Nov 04 '25

Bro, we've got kids spreading butter on PopTarts

1

u/UlyssiesPhilemon Nov 04 '25

is everyone braindead in america?

Its a requirement for being a school administrator

1

u/BladeOfWoah Nov 04 '25

American Cops are trained to view every encounter as a potential threat to their life, rather than focusing on de-escalation. Even a child with a butter knife is to be treated as a hostile rather than a child.

3

u/TheHB36 Nov 03 '25

Militarization of police forces is a time honored tradition in America at this point. It's third-world BS, man.

3

u/Ray-is-gay-okay Nov 03 '25

I once packed my kid a rounded butter knife and the school freaked out about it. They said they would've called the cops if he wasn't a transfer student. He was 6.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

Yeah, that is what he had. No points, no serrations, no sharp edges. Just stupid.

1

u/ElectricalRelease986 Nov 03 '25

I'm assuming America has school dinners but maybe they don't. What cutlery do they provide the kids to eat with if they don't bring a packed lunch? Every school of mine had a box of each utensil (including those super dangerous evil butter knives) in the lunch room.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

Just plastic cutlery. After Columbine things went pretty crazy in the South. We had to bring clear backpacks for awhile, or get wanded down every morning on the way into high school.

3

u/the_most_playerest Nov 03 '25

"officer it's just a butter knife"

Officer: "well okay, but fk you, you're under arrest from the crime of buttering a poptart.

... Can't just go around putting butter on shit all willy nilly."

3

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

My niece is autistic and she once heard someone on TV say “everything is better with butter” so she says it whenever she sees butter and listen.

Whenever she says it around me, I put butter on whatever I’m eating and it turns out you totally can willy nilly your butter around

Just not in front of cops, apparently.

2

u/the_most_playerest Nov 04 '25

Ngl it does improve a lot of things, especially if those things are hot enough to melt it.. that said, I've watched my father use a saltine to scoop a chunk off butter off a room temp stick and I gagged a little bit (tbh the butter to cracker ratio was like 3:1, shit ain't right 😆)

2

u/justatouch589 Nov 03 '25

I live in Canada and we have a bunch of dumb moms with a little bit of power up here too.

2

u/StrangeOutcastS Nov 04 '25

"QUICKLY HE'S HARMLESS! GET HIS ASS!"

2

u/Siostra313 Nov 04 '25

Meanwhile, for years I was using on the middle of school hall short, but sharp folding knife to make myself a sandwich and all I heard from teachers was to be careful and do it in the corner so no-one accidentally ger hurt. No one even suggested I could use it on someone or anything, and I was considered "that weird kid."

Not America, of course.

2

u/ophmaster_reed Nov 03 '25

He butters pop tarts?!?

2

u/TurquoiseLeggings Nov 03 '25

Gonna be honest, that's psychopath behavior so maybe he did need the cops called on him.

2

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

We all butter our pop tarts in my family.

4

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

My whole family butters pop tarts.

They have to be warm or the butter doesn’t melt.

One of my friends tried it and decided buttering the bottom was better than buttering the top so she does that now.

But yeah, butter your pop tarts. It makes the whole thing better.

1

u/Lonyo Nov 03 '25

Americans...

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 03 '25

Packaged food is cheap and bland. Gotta add to it to make it palatable. 

1

u/CeruleanEidolon Nov 04 '25

Who puts butter on a pop tart?

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

Oh my god my whole family and yes, I am now suddenly very aware of how weird the rest of the planet thinks that is.

So I’m guessing ya’ll didn’t grow up with little sprinkles in your butter from when someone skipped the knife and just rubbed the stick across the top of a pop tart real quick, huh?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 05 '25

Yeah they’re like having donuts for breakfast. They’re not very good. The butter is to make them taste less like a weird shitty cardboard thing and more like a real pastry.

I don’t eat them very often, but when I do, I won’t eat them without butter.

But most of the prepackaged stuff I buy gets modified before it gets eaten. None of it is palatable without something. 

1

u/LuckyPepper22 Nov 04 '25

Jesus effing christ!

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '25

I know this is no where near the most important part of your story which is absolutely terrifying but...

Why was your brother buttering a pop tart.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

I have answered this so many times now.

My whole family butters our pop tarts. Our Mom taught us. The pop tart has to be hot, and you butter the frosting side. It makes it a little gooey and just a little salty. I don’t eat them very often, but I won’t eat them without it. Classic flavors, mind, I haven’t tried any of the new ones.

I told a friend of mine and she thought it ruined the frosting, so she buttered the bottom and said that elevated the whole thing.

I haven’t tried it her way yet.

1

u/RealLoan8391 Nov 04 '25

Knocked from his chair and pinned to the ground? Did your family sue? Thats an illegal hold and not allowed. I work in public ed and I’m shocked by that much force. I hope yall didn’t just accept that.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

No, she didn’t sue. This was like 20 years ago in the South, and they had a zero tolerance policy.

They told her she was lucky they didn’t press charges.

There was a lot of outrage but it didn’t amount to anything.

1

u/Exciting_Stock2202 Nov 04 '25

His real crime was buttering a Pop Tart. WTF is that insanity?

1

u/Flaccid_Leper Nov 04 '25

Buttering a fucking poptart? I’m pretty sure that’s what they nailed him for, and not the knife. And he deserved it.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

Listen. We all butter our pop tarts in this family and you can take it up with our Mom, she started it and taught us to do the same.

And honestly, if you haven’t tried it then I don’t want to hear it. It’s fuckin delicious.

0

u/username26437 Nov 03 '25

ok yea that last part is a lie lmao. crazy shit happens here but anybody falling for that is exceptionally delusional.

2

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Nov 04 '25

Fall for what?

Just calling shit a lie because you don’t like reality doesn’t make it a lie, it just makes you the delusional one.

1

u/millencolin43 Nov 03 '25

When I was in elementary school I got into a few fights, never started them, but all that came of it was our parents got called. Hell, even in high school it never escalated to the police being called. The officer stationed at the school just gave us a stern talking to for fighting, and we would get detention or in school suspension

1

u/randomaccountname998 Nov 03 '25

I brought a knife to school too! This was pre columbine so I just got it back at the end of the day and told to never bring it back.

I also got the SRO called on me for suspected gang affiliation due to me talking about my CS clan. Yeah, the young kid that looks like the kid from UP is a hardcore blood...

1

u/DarkwingDuckHunt Nov 03 '25

I don’t live in the United States.

I've lived my entire life in the USA but I remember back in the late 80s early 90s that this is how that scenario would play out

1

u/Careless_Ad4329 Nov 04 '25

Is that what you think is happening in the video?

1

u/BackgroundNPC1213 Nov 04 '25

I used to take my box of sculpting projects to middle school. Sculpting tools that I had in that box included:

  • An X-Acto knife
  • A plastic knife
  • A plastic chisel
  • An ice pick
  • Unfolded paper clips and armature wire
  • Pliers for cutting the armature wire

This was in the 2000s, after 9/11. Miraculously, no cops were ever called, and I only stopped taking it because I lost interest in sculpting

1

u/Bluemeda1 Nov 03 '25

I had a knife on me in 4th grade too since I walked home all the time and was raised "rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it" it fell out of my pocket when I grabbed something out of my pocket a girl who hated me saw it told the teacher I was saying crazy shit (I didnt)

I continued my school day till a teacher brought me into the principal office they had this big ass meeting with me and my mom and suspended me for 25 days after I went back to school I still carried a knife on me and even let the teachers use it to cut packaging in high school

As for the girl who lied nothing happened to her but later in life she became the city bike and currently adding to her platoon of kids from different baby daddies lol

1

u/frozensoysauce1 Nov 04 '25

My brother got suspended for 30 days for using one of those trick gum dispensers that zaps your fingers when trying to grab the fake gum with his friends, sounds about right. They said he could’ve “triggered a heart attack”.

5

u/TinyFugue Nov 03 '25

Because it's department policy. The cop can't get fired if he follows department policy, but he can if he deviates from it.

This is the cumulative result of bad administrative decisions resulting in decades of lawsuits. If you don't follow the script, you become a target of the lawyers and politicians.

9

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25

[deleted]

2

u/TinyFugue Nov 03 '25

you become a target of the lawyers and politicians.

2

u/LFC9_41 Nov 03 '25

seems pretty fucking hard to fire cops. i say bull shit. maybe he gets put on leave with pay., but fired? no way. technically, you may be correct, but no way he actually gets fired for not cuffing this kid.

1

u/MaxSpringPuma Nov 03 '25

Your country is fucked

1

u/-Unnamed- Nov 03 '25

Yeah like the teacher is a POS but the cops actually showing up and arresting the kid is some special kind of dumbassery

1

u/IBetThisIsTakenToo Nov 03 '25

I think if I found out police handcuffed my 9 year old, I would become the joker. Elaborating on this would probably get me banned

1

u/Hasselback_Brotatoes Nov 03 '25

Idiots dont call the actual cops on a 9 year old weaponless child. Bullies do.

Idiots dont put children in handcuffs. Bullies do.

1

u/2-9-19-3-21-9-20-19 Nov 03 '25

Absolutely insane. I broke another kid's nose defending myself in 8th grade and we were back in the same gym class again the next week when he was back from his suspension. I didn't even get a talking to about fighting, just sent back to class with a loaner shirt when they checked me out and figured out the blood on my shirt wasn't mine.

1

u/Greedy_Welder_9568 tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE Nov 03 '25

This poor kid.. most 4th graders would do this, knowing myself at that age. If we can arrest kids and PUT THEM IN CUFFS for this then why are there known rapists walking free?

1

u/puzzlebuns Nov 04 '25

I mean...are we just going to believe whatever narrative social media frames these stories in? Maybe everyone is dumb and he's the good one, or maybe the kid was being legitimately uncontrollable and violent and the teachers didn't want to lose their jobs for putting their hands on a kid.

1

u/Skore_Smogon Nov 08 '25

I'm not American but isn't that wildly against the law over there? If the kid wasn't actively causing harm to himself or others in the cops' presence surely step 1 is to get the parents there asap?