Many schools have ‘zero-tolerance’ weapons rules, but a Chicago school went a little too far last month when they interrogated, scrutinized and suspended an 11-year-old boy for a plastic, non-firing, toy gun.
Even worse, the 6th grader, Caden Cook, voluntarily turned in the gun to school security after realizing he had mistakenly taken it to school.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties group, has taken up the boy’s case on behalf of his mother, Edith Fraustro.
“According to Caden’s mother, Ms. Fraustro, Caden was waiting in line to be patted down on Friday, January 31st, when he realized that he had mistakenly left in his sweater pocket a toy plastic gun which he had played with the previous night…” a letter from Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead to the Director of Chicago Public Schools reads. “Caden alerted the security personnel to his predicament.”
After turning in the toy, Cook was allegedly subjected to an interrogation with intimidation tactics, threats and accusations of lying by Vice Principal Timothy Daly — all before his mother was even notified of the incident. After being interrogated, Cook was suspended for one day and required to participate in counseling and psychiatric evaluation before returning to school. The suspension will remain part of Cook’s permanent record.
According to Whitehead, “the entire incident has been greatly distressing for Caden and his family, resulting in nightmares for the 11-year-old and a complete loss in trust in the school system to act judiciously In loco parentis such that Ms. Fraustro removed both of her children from the District in order to homeschool them.”
Sadly, Cook’s situation is becoming far too common. At the end of last year, an 8-year-old boy in Florida was suspended for pointing his fingers like a gun and a 12-year-old in Rhode Island was suspended for having a mini gun key chain the size of a quarter. Earlier last year, a West Virginia eighth grader was arrested for wearing an NRA t-shirt to school.
The zero tolerance policy has gone so off-track that some legislators have decided to act. After a Maryland second grader was suspended for eating his Pop-Tart into a shape that his teacher thought looked like a gun, Florida lawmakers decided to form a policy that would protect students from getting into serious trouble for harmless objects. The ‘Pop-Tart’ school-gun bill cleared its first hurdle just last.
Source:- redalertpolitics.com
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