• March 28, 2024

A Teacher With a Bottle and a Gun What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Melanie Bullard, a teacher at Shelton Elementary School in Dallas was accused of smelling like alcohol to school administrators.  They brought her to the office and tested for alcohol by the school resource officer.  After she tested positive for alcohol, officials searched for an open container.  But what they found was a gun stashed away in her purse which was sitting under her desk on the floor.

Bullard tested positive for alcohol in evaluations administered by a school resource officer, Paulding County sheriff’s Sergeant Ashley Henson said.  

During a search for any open containers of alcohol, they found a loaded semiautomatic pistol in her purse, which was on the floor under her desk. 

Bullard was being held without bond on charges of reckless conduct and possession of a weapon on school property. It wasn’t immediately clear whether she had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

Now, I realize students are much more dangerous today than when I went to school but I hardly think a teacher needs a gun to deal with elementary students, although I can understand the alcohol. I’m just glad this is the story and not “Teacher Gets Drunk, Goes on a Shooting Spree”.

But I fear that her lawyer will get her off on a technicality.  Perhaps, there wasn’t really reasonable cause to test her for alcohol, which would then see the test thrown out as well as the gun because without the test, they had no right to search her.  She could then get a teaching job somewhere else and the arrest would not be available to the new district.

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