As I read this story, I contrasted this with the “Bong Hits for Jesus” question in Alaska and currently in front of SCOTUS.
As Franklin High School mourned one of its own Friday, investigators continued to piece together how 18-year-old Leonard Hunter — a repeat felon and much-loved football player — ended up shot to death in an Everett stairwell.
Investigators are silent on claims by neighbors that Hunter on Tuesday was actually killed with his own gun, having lost control of the pistol during a fracas with a man he may have been trying to rob.
Once again, not his gun. He’s a convicted felon, so he couldn’t own any gun, and even if he had no rap sheet, he’s under 21, so he couldn’t own a handgun.
Since age 16, records show, Hunter had been convicted or entered no-contest pleas to charges of residential burglary, forgery and first-degree theft — all felonies.
(snip)
Hunter apparently also had trouble with a neighbor — Michael Davis, 26, a convicted drug dealer who was arrested last year while allegedly driving a car carrying $1,830 worth of crack cocaine and a loaded pistol. Hunter asked in February 2006 for a restraining order after alleging that he’d been threatened by Davis, who lives next door to Hunter’s family in a massive Rainier Beach apartment complex.
(snip)
At Franklin High, students have erected a makeshift shrine to Hunter in a lobby. Students have left dozens of messages, thanking him for his kindness and wishing him peace in death.
If Mr. Hunter was not himself a drug dealer, it looks like his murder was a direct consequence of the illicit drug trade. If a “Bong Hits for Jesus” banner shouldn’t be allowed because the pro-drug message interferes with the school’s anti-drug mission, then having a memorial glorifying a drug-involved ne’er-do-well shouldn’t either.
One difference between these two cases is that the BHFJ banner was rolled out at a school-sanctioned event outside of school premises, while this memorial, which essentially glorifies dope peddling, is inside the school.
It seems like certain schools take their anti-drug mission more seriously than others. To borrow Lizz Brown’s phrase and to turn it against her, it’s not about the anti-drug mission, it’s about the race of schools that pursue it.
[...] So Much For Drug-Free Schools [...]