Jared Marcum, a 14-year-old boy who wore a pro-National Rife Association (NRA) shirt to school might face jail time, according to reports.
Marcum, who wore the shirt in April to his West Virginia school, is facing as long as a year in jail, reported CBS affiliate WOWK-TV. In the incident, a school official told him several times to remove the shirt. Marcum stated that he would not remove it, saying he is protected by the First Amendment and pointed out that the school’s dress code doesn’t prohibit him from wearing it.
Logan County Police Department officials said that Marcum would not stop talking and allegedly prevented the officer from doing his job, the station reported. The penalty for that, officials said, is a year in jail and a $500 fine.
“Me, I’m more of a fighter and so is Jared and eventually we’re going to get through this,” his father, Allen Lardieri, told WOWK. “I don’t think it should have ever gotten this far.”
The station reported that officers wanted to charge him with making terroristic threats.
“In my view of the facts, Jared didn’t do anything wrong,” Ben White, his attorney, told the station. “I think officer Adkins could have done something differently.”
White pointed out that nowhere on the arresting officer’s paperwork does it say that the boy made threats or acted in a violent manner.
“Their version is that the suspension was for disrupting the educational process, not the shirt,” White told The Associated Press in April. “I don’t see how he materially disrupted the educational process,” he said.
According to the school’s website, it does not say that wearing an NRA shirt is prohibited.
