5-year-old girl suspended for talking about bubble gun

That's bubble GUN, not gum.

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MOUNT CARMEL - Talking with a friend about a pink toy bubble gun got a five-year-old kindergarten girl in the Mount Carmel Area School District labeled as a terrorist threat, according to an attorney.

The incident occurred Jan. 10 while the girl was waiting in line for a school bus, said Robin Ficker, the Maryland lawyer retained by the girl's family. He would not identify the girl or her parents, but gave this version of events:

Talking with a friend, the girl said something to the effect “I’m going to shoot you and I will shoot myself” in reference to the device that shoots out bubbles. The girl did not have the bubble gun with her and has never shot a real gun in her life, Ficker said.

Elementary school officials learned of the conversation and questioned the girls the next day, Fickler said. He said the girl did not have a parent present during the 30 minutes of questioning.

The result, he said, was that the student was labeled a "terrorist threat" and suspended for 10 days, Ficker said. The school also required her to be evaluated by a psychologist, Ficker said.

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What is it with school administrators? Are they legally required to remove their brains before they get the job?

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Ficker, who said he was contacted because the mother had read he handled a similar case in Maryland, suggested she ask the principal to expunge the record. That did not happen, but her suspension was reduced to two school days, and the reason for it changed to being labeled as a threat to harm another student.

"Threatening to harm another student". WITH BUBBLES. OMG DON'T SHOOT HER WITH BUBBLES THAT'S A TERRORIST ACT

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Ficker believes the girl’s record should be expunged and she be offered an apology.

Damn right.

After Columbine parents across the nation went to their suburban utopia schools and whined and whined and whined to everyone they could make listen that they need to keep their precious darlings safe from goths in trench coats.

So school administrators came up with something called a "Zero Tolerance Policy" and they've been loling ever since.

"Zero Tolerance" predates Columbine you smarmy schmuck

Doesn't mean I don't still think it's some enormous, mean-spirited practical joke. It's gotta be. Either that or every now and then newspapers don't have anything to write about so they just make shit up. I can't believe any human is so thick and inflexible that they would expel/suspend/whatever an elementary schooler for talking about a bubble gun or bringing a GI Joe to school or whatever.

Habeeb it, motherfucker. Truth stranger than fiction.

... Just like I can't imagine you actually just made that post. So I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

I don't like wading into guntalk because:

a) Both my feet are firmly planted on one side of the debate, and there ain't nothin' that's gonna shift me.

and

b) I'm well aware that America is an entirely different culture, one I'm particularly ignorant of outside of various media outlets - adding to the fact that I'm utterly ignorant of guns as a whole, so my input is of a dubious level of contribution.

This is why I haven't even opened the CT Elementary school thread.

Saying that, you can argue over-sensitivity all you want when it comes to toy guns. Try arguing it with a policeman who has shot a kid only to find out that kid was threatening people with Megatron.

Mind you, I don't think Gunwank is even relevant here, given the facts as presented I can see a few things:

a) We are only getting one side of the story. That of the lawyer defending the child. We do not have the school's version of events, nor the other kids involved. We can't get this, the case is ongoing and involves minors. This is not an informed position.

b) The lawyer... he used the word "terroristic". Fuck him.


We are given the line "Elementary school officials learned of the conversation". All it takes is for one kid to take the conversation literally (and we are talking about 5 year olds here) and the school really can't afford to take the matter lightly. Given that a 30 min "interrogation" couldn't resolve the issue, either there's something more, or the kid was pretty vague in their responses.

That and: "her suspension was reduced to two school days, and the reason for it changed to being labeled as a threat to harm another student."


Once again, we are only getting one side of the story. But even from that one side, all I'm seeing is an irritating, overbearing, lawyer-happy parent getting butthurt because their brat of a child threatened another one and got punished for it.

But hay, I'm not allowed to make off the surface value judgements. Let's see how this plays out. Providing we ever hear of it again.

WD40 has made the only good post here. Keep up the good work.

WD40 wrote:

This is why I haven't even opened the CT Elementary school thread.

IIRC that thread is mostly aimless wank about nothing like every other newsthread. I think Harley was the only one trying to talk about guns.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

WD40 wrote:

This is why I haven't even opened the CT Elementary school thread.

IIRC that thread is mostly aimless wank about nothing like every other newsthread. I think Harley was the only one trying too hard to talk about guns.

FTFY reep.

When I was a child, I was taught not to use sayings like 'I'll kill you' even in a joking manner. Why? Because they could be construed as a threat even if I wasn't really meaning it. That was before many of the school shootings that have made both parents and school administrators paranoid over the safety of the children attending the schools. 30 minute interrogations with a five year old without a parent being present seems a little ridiculous to me, but as WD40 pointed out, we're only getting one side of the story. Without knowledge that the child was talking about a bubble gun, I can understand how 'I'll shoot you then I'll shoot myself' could be considered a threat and treated as such.

All I can think of is that when I was a kid, I spent a good deal of my time playing with cap guns and toy guns. I'm thinking the world must have been a different place then, or we must've been smarter, because we all knew the difference between pretending to kill someone and actually killing them. And we weren't much older than this girl.

Of course, I've never owned a real gun (nor do I want to), but kids aren't adults. Plus, the fact she told the other kid she'd shoot them and then herself suggests to me she has no idea that death is a permanent thing.

Also, when did it become acceptable to 'interrogate' a five-year-old for 30 minutes without calling her parents first? I know everyone's still on edge about Newtown, but I hardly think five-year-olds with bubble guns represent a clear and present danger to others.

WD40 wrote:

Saying that, you can argue over-sensitivity all you want when it comes to toy guns. Try arguing it with a policeman who has shot a kid only to find out that kid was threatening people with Megatron.

I wouldn't waste my time, but then again, I firmly believe that cops involved in a "bad shoot" should go to fucking prison, as would happen to the rest of us.

WD40 wrote:

Once again, we are only getting one side of the story. But even from that one side, all I'm seeing is an irritating, overbearing, lawyer-happy parent getting butthurt because their brat of a child threatened another one and got punished for it.

But hay, I'm not allowed to make off the surface value judgements.

Right, because apparently you're unfamiliar with how ridiculous zero-tolerance policies are. Doobs too, because it's not a matter of teachers' discretion here. "Zero Tolerance" means they have none. Seriously. They enforce the letter of the policy or they lose their jobs.

It's not that there's more to the case than we're getting here. There could be, but it honestly doesn't matter, due to the policy. Which is set by elected officials, not teachers. Teachers, being state employees, have no choice but to comply.

Penguin wrote:

Right, because apparently you're unfamiliar with how ridiculous zero-tolerance policies are. Doobs too, because it's not a matter of teachers' discretion here. "Zero Tolerance" means they have none. Seriously. They enforce the letter of the policy or they lose their jobs.

You're right - and I don't doubt that Zero Tolerance policies are absurd. But again, saying that, the first mention of the term "Zero tolerance policy" came from this thread, not the news story. If that bell was one this lawyer could ring, you'd be sure he'd be ringing it. I don't think it's relevant here.

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It's not that there's more to the case than we're getting here. There could be,

Personally, I think the opposite. That there's a hell of a lot less to the story.

We're not given a time frame from when the "Terrorist threat" description is dropped and reduced to a 2 day suspension for all we know it could have happened on the same day.

Second, it's the lawyer, not the school, that provided the phrase "terrorist threat". He could be using hyperbole. He almost certainly IS using hyperbole. That's his job. (As is setting up school-intimidating, pearl-clutching news articles like this one. It's an intimidation tactic. And a vile one too, because the school literally cannot give it's version of events to defend itself.)


I honestly think that all we're looking at here is a misbehaving child who was threatening other students, the School has put something in place and the parents don't like it and have hired a lawyer to make a big stink to force the school into cow-towing.

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Also, when did it become acceptable to 'interrogate' a five-year-old for 30 minutes without calling her parents first?

While I was at school we'd be sent to the headmaster's office for hours on end for detention and a telling off. Parents were only called if the situation was serious. But, you know, different time, different world. I guess.


That the parents weren't called, and that the "interrogation" (Again, the lawyer's words. Questioning? Telling off? Try some others.) only lasted half an hour seems to suggest that the teachers got to the core of the problem pretty quick. (Or again, as I suspect, had a farely good idea of the problem to begin with)