I was assaulted at work today by a student with a green laser pointer. Here in Sweden, these green lasers are considered dangerous and are therefore illegal to bring into, well, almost anywhere: schools, airports, any public building really. This student was apparently unaware that it’s illegal to bring a green laser into a school and that shining it into someone’s face is considered assault. Yep, he shined it right into my face, as well as one other teacher’s face and the faces of several students. He was just trying to be an annoying asshole, not knowing that the way he was doing it was a criminal act. Not that this matters. Ignorance of the law does not excuse one from breaking it.

It’s just a damn good thing that he didn’t shine the laser directly into my eyes, since I have epilepsy. He didn’t know that either, he said, otherwise he never would have done it. Cute. I got it on the side of my face, though. I was standing next to the front door talking to a couple of students when I saw this green glow in the corner of my eye. When I looked up I saw the student hide something in his hand. I then went back to talking to the students and it happened again. The little bastard did it twice. I guess he thought it was only some harmless fun, but it really did scare me. You don’t screw around with that kind of thing when you have this condition. I walked over to him, almost shaking at this point, and told him to never, ever, EVER, shine that laser in my or anyone else’s face ever again. He mumbled an apology and I went back to work. A few minutes later, though, I saw one of my colleagues talking to the student and he was not happy. Not happy at all, for he had gotten the green laser right in his eyes. As he was talking/yelling to the student, he (the student) kept getting more and more belligerent. At one point I thought he was going to hit my colleague.

At this point neither of us knew that green lasers are illegal in schools and shining them in people’s eyes is an assault, but we learned this shortly afterward. My colleague attempted to confiscate the laser but the student was adamant that he didn’t have it anymore. He had apparently given it to a friend. We tracked down this friend and, naturally, he didn’t have it either. The laser-wielding student was then suspended from school and asked to leave. Unfortunately we weren’t yet aware that this was a matter for the police. We found out after he left. We were get in touch with the police tomorrow, though.

The student will be removed from the school. If he doesn’t leave voluntarily, then we’ll make it a police matter and he’ll be forced to change schools. The owner of the school won’t want to do this though, since he’s afraid this will tarnish the image of the school. Bullshit to that, I say. A student did something wrong and we did something about it. How will that make the school look bad? If we did nothing, it would make the school look worse. Anyway, this is all moot. The student broke the law and the police have to be contacted about it. If the school won’t then I will, goddammit. Even though I was told that I would probably lose my job if I did.

I just want to make the student into an example and show the other students that there are consequences to their actions. They kept saying that they thought we were making such a big deal over nothing and it really wasn’t that important. If that’s how they feel about it then I guess they wouldn’t mind if they had a green laser shined into their eyes for five seconds and suffer searing pain and permanent retinal damage. Then, we’ll see if they still think it’s not that important.