Faith Makes All the Difference: Fistfights and Guns at "Just for Jesus" Rally
From the "religion makes people moral" file comes news of the goings-on after the Just for Jesus Ministries rally in Lake Charles, Louisiana. You might have heard of this event because a local student sued the school board in an attempt to force it to provide buses to transport students who were skipping off school to the event.
Despite not having buses, plenty of students missed a day of school to attend. Clearly, their insistence upon religious observance over secular education has made these kids different, because what happened on the grounds of the rally for DA LAWD was nothing at all like what happens in other situations wherein large numbers of teens and pre-teens gather. Don't take my word for it, though!
Just for Jesus keeps LC Police busySee? These kids were so inspired by what they heard at the Just for Jesus rally that they felt all Christ-like and, as we all know, Jesus loved nothing better than storming into a fast food joint and trashing the place. You just don't get this kind of moral education in some public school classroom. No, sir! But wait, there's more:
Once again... Law enforcement officers find themselves responding to downtown Lake Charles after the Just for Jesus rally.
Thousands of students apparently left the Civic Center Coliseum without rides home. Some students did wait patiently for their parents to pick them up. Others scattered across the civic center grounds, some on to Wendy's.
Wendy's experienced the after effects of Just for Jesus participants and while store officials had no comment, Lake Charles Police Sergeant Mark Kraus has plenty to say.
All's quiet now at Wendy's but there was quite a ruckus in the aftermath of the Just for Jesus rally at the civic center. Restaurant officials would not allow us inside to take pictures, but they reported to police that a large group of young people came inside. Police were first called because it youth were allegedly tearing up the restaurant. Explains Sergeant Mark Kraus, "They said about sixty juveniles to young adults were inside the business and in their words were tearing it up."
Then, Kraus explains, there was an incident involving a gun. He says a Wendy's clerk was threatened. "One of the men that was in the store advised that if she called the police that he was going to go get his gun. She picked up the phone. He left and threatened that he was getting a gun. They locked the store, refused any entry or exit from the store. We arrived, determined the identity of the suspect, arrested him, did not locate a gun but he was still arrested for disturbing the peace by alarming the public."
Kraus says all this raises serious questions about whether this event strains law enforcement resources and what should be done. "We responded to seven legitimate calls that we initiated. We had to take patrol officers off the road, put them in this particular beat, chase people around from one part of the neighborhood to the other part of the neighborhood."
He admits not even Mardi Gras or Contraband Days seem to have such problems. "I think that we're dealing with juveniles for the most part. And not to say that juveniles are inherently bad."
Kraus's advice to parents: "If I plan on sending my child to this, I would want to go with my child."
Fights break out after Just for Jesus rallyWhy, of course. Didn't Jesus teach us to "punch thy neighbor?" I'm not sure why there should have been a problem instigated by kids just because they didn't have a ride after the rally. They must have gotten quite an earful about morality. The police must be making it up. The Lake Charles, LA police department is no doubt part of the Atheist Darwinist Conspiracy. There's no way that all these good Christian kids who missed a day of school to go hear the "Good News" preached would ever start beating one another up.
...Law enforcement officers were already in full force at the rally and called in additional units when fights broke out on Civic Center grounds...
Law enforcement officers says the problem is many students were dropped off at the Civic Center without making arrangements to be picked up...
But wait, there's still more!
Arrests made after Just for Jesus rallyI don't know about you, but I have a hard time believing that a teenager attending a Just for Jesus rally would have had a stolen handgun with him. Clearly God gave him that gun and the authorities had no right to take it away from him. God loves guns, after all. And cigarettes, too.
According to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Department students who attended the Just for Jesus rally told deputies they thought one of the students had a gun even though they didn't see it. When deputies approached the student he ran through a bank parking lot on Lakeshore Drive.
The student was caught on Broad Street across from Wendy's parking lot. Witnesses saw the student throw something blue into nearby bushes. When deputies looked through the area they found a Smith and Wesson .357 caliber handgun wrapped in a blue hooded shirt. There was one round in the gun cylinder.
The gun was recovered by deputies and there were no unspent rounds in the gun. Deputies say the gun was identified as one that was stolen from a car back in September 2007.
The student was arrested and taken to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office.
The student attends Reynaud Middle School and is 15-years-old.
CPSO Sgt. Jerry Roessler is the primary deputy for this incident.
Three other students were arrested for fighting. Another arrested for underaged possession of tobacco products.
Religion has clearly made a big difference in these kids' lives. It's a good thing that Just for Jesus Ministries provided a excused absence note for parents to sign (well, probably...) so that the kids could miss out on a day of education for this much-more-important event that surely transformed their lives. Because, you know, good Christian kids would never download the slip, forge their parent's signature and just skip off school to illegally obtain tobacco products or show off their stolen handgun.
They're much too moral for that, unlike those damned immoral, atheist Lake Charles cops.
