School Suspends Boy for Sketching Gun

[NotSoSilentBob]

August 22, 2007 - 3:25pm

MESA, Ariz. (AP) - School officials suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates.

The boy's parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted.

"The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good," said the boy's mother, Paula Mosteller.

The drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries or target any human, the parents said. And the East Valley Tribune reported that the boy said he didn't intend for the picture to be a threat.

Administrators of Payne Junior High in nearby Chandler suspended the boy on Monday for five days but later reduced it to three days.

The boy's father, Ben Mosteller, said that when he went to the school to discuss his son's punishment, school officials mentioned the seriousness of the issue and talked about the massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, where two teenagers shot and killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in 1999. Mosteller said he was offended by the reference.

Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the crude sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," and that threatening words or pictures are punishable.


(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

http://wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1228244

[MikeJones]

Nice dig Bob.

[imported_VHSLhelper]

My best friend back in 5th grade was artistic - he did an AWEsOME drawing of a Uke. Personally, I think a Uke would be threating for a lot of 5th gradera, so he'd be suspended these days, right?
And what about a drawing of a naked woman? Now THAT would be threating to a lot of the younger boys.
How did I EVER survive 7th grade? Boys still carried pocketknives and a Playboy would occasionally show up.

[TheBeast]

Hell I drew guns and stuff like that all the time.

[imported_MoonlightGraham]

yeah really. I had a friend draw guns all the time and now he is in Iraq. Defending our country.

[yankeebaseball]

I say well played. Warning sign maybe or maybe not?
You can look back at this when kids are dead and say well, he was drawing guns, then he was naming names then he was shooting people.