Teen Jailed 13 Days Over A Pocketknife

Story here. Excerpt:

'A high school senior in Ohio is facing felony charges after officials at the technical school he was attending for firefighter training searched his vehicle and found a pocketknife. The young man's future and his dreams of serving the public are now in jeopardy.

"If I am convicted of a felony, I'm never going to be a police officer. I'm never going to be a fireman. I'm never going to be in the military," Jordan Wiser told The Huffington Post. "I won't even be able to be a janitor. I'm 18 years old, and this is going to ruin my entire life."

Wiser was enrolled at the Ashtabula County Technical and Career Campus (A-Tech) in Jefferson, Ohio, a small village located about 60 miles northeast of Cleveland. Wiser told HuffPost he was taking A-Tech's Firefighter 2 and EMT courses.
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"The principal said he had reason to believe I had weapons in my vehicle and needed to search it," Wiser said. "He made me empty out all my pockets, and the vice principal grabbed me and patted me down very forcibly. It was somewhat awkward. Then they took my car keys. I told them what was in my car and said, 'Don't be alarmed.'"

Wiser said he did not give school officials permission to search his vehicle, and there was no warrant to perform the search. School administrators, he said, cited the school handbook as their warrant. He claims they also denied his request to call an attorney.

Inside Wiser's vehicle, officials found an assortment of items, including the folding blade pocketknife, a stun gun and two Airsoft guns. Airsoft is a sport in which participants eliminate opponents by hitting them with spherical non-metallic pellets, launched from the Airsoft guns.

Wiser said the Airsoft guns were in his trunk because he had plans to participate in the sport after school. The stun gun, a nonlethal device capable of incapacitating a person by administering electric shock, was for self-defense, he said. The pocketknife was, according to the teen, part of his EMT kit.

"I didn't think anything of the Airsoft guns," Wiser said. "Our school is a technical school, and I was planning on meeting with my Airsoft team after school. My stun gun was locked in the glove box, and the knife was in my EMT medical vest. I bought it at K-Mart and have it as part of my first responder kit for cutting seatbelts."

Wiser was ultimately arrested and jailed for illegal conveyance of a weapon onto a school ground, a Class 5 felony.'