NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. -- The latest case of zero-tolerance at the public schools has a 10-year-old student sadder and wiser, and facing expulsion and long-term juvenile detention. And it has his mother worried that his punishment has already been harsher than the offense demands.
"I think I shouldn't have brought a gun to school in the first place," said the student, Alandis Ford, sitting at home Thursday night with his mother, Tosha Ford, at his side.
Alandis' gun was a "cap gun," a toy cowboy six-shooter that his mother bought for him.
"We got it from Wal-Mart for $5.96," Tosha Ford said, "in the toy section right next to the cowboy hats. That's what he wanted because it was just like the ones he was studying for the Civil War" in his fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School.
[SNIP--here comes the insane part--TP]
Alandis was charged with possessing a weapon on school property and with terroristic acts and threats.
"On the school bus," on Tuesday, Alandis said, "when I dug into my bookbag trying to get my phone out, the boy beside me, he reached in my bookbag and got it [the toy gun] and started telling everybody, 'He's got a gun, he's got a gun,' and spread it around the whole bus. So I put it back in my bookbag."
But he said the students kept shouting, "He's going to shoot all y'all, he's got a gun, he's going to bring it to school and shoot all y'all." Did Alandis ever say anything like that or make any threatening moves with his toy gun? "No!"
Source: Channel 11 Atlanta
Hat Tip: Free Republic (not hot linked because it is a Gannet new source)
This is insanity. This poor child has been subjected being to jack-booted treatment by the police and the public school system. Heaven forbid any relative of mine is ever treated like this...
"I think I shouldn't have brought a gun to school in the first place," said the student, Alandis Ford, sitting at home Thursday night with his mother, Tosha Ford, at his side.
Alandis' gun was a "cap gun," a toy cowboy six-shooter that his mother bought for him.
"We got it from Wal-Mart for $5.96," Tosha Ford said, "in the toy section right next to the cowboy hats. That's what he wanted because it was just like the ones he was studying for the Civil War" in his fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School.
[SNIP--here comes the insane part--TP]
Alandis was charged with possessing a weapon on school property and with terroristic acts and threats.
"On the school bus," on Tuesday, Alandis said, "when I dug into my bookbag trying to get my phone out, the boy beside me, he reached in my bookbag and got it [the toy gun] and started telling everybody, 'He's got a gun, he's got a gun,' and spread it around the whole bus. So I put it back in my bookbag."
But he said the students kept shouting, "He's going to shoot all y'all, he's got a gun, he's going to bring it to school and shoot all y'all." Did Alandis ever say anything like that or make any threatening moves with his toy gun? "No!"
Source: Channel 11 Atlanta
Hat Tip: Free Republic (not hot linked because it is a Gannet new source)
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This is insanity. This poor child has been subjected being to jack-booted treatment by the police and the public school system. Heaven forbid any relative of mine is ever treated like this...
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