-Caveat Lector-
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/03/21/studentscharged.ap/index.html
Second-graders face charges for paper gun
March 21, 2001
Web posted at: 5:07 PM EST (2207 GMT)
IRVINGTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Two
second-graders playing cops and robbers with a
paper gun were charged with making terrorist
threats.
The boys' parents said the situation should have
been resolved in the principal's office, but Police
Chief Steven Palamara on Wednesday defended
school officials and the district's zero-tolerance
policy.
"It may appear to some as though we went a little overboard
because it was a
paper gun, but what would those same people say if this incident
was ignored
and in a day, week or month the same student came to school
with a firearm?"
Palamara asked.
Authorities said that 8-year-old Hamadi Alston stood up at
his desk at Augusta
Street School last Thursday, pointed paper folded to look like
a gun at his
classmates and said, "I'm going to kill you all."
Hamadi said he was imitating what his friend, Jaquill Shelton,
had done earlier
that day.
The police chief said Jaquill had given Hamadi the paper gun
in the bathroom.
The two boys were suspended and, under the district's zero-tolerance
policy,
school officials notified police, who charged the boys.
"Although the paper handgun posed no immediate threat to the
students in the
class, the words spoken certainly and appropriately were recognized
by school
officials and police as warning signs to cause concern," Palamara
said.
The court can now determine whether either boy needs counseling
or just a stern
warning, he said.
The parents, as well as the Essex County prosecutor's office,
were involved
immediately, he said.
The prosecutor's office did not immediately return a message
seeking comment
on Wednesday.
"This is just stupid, stupid, stupid," Ron Alston, Hamadi's
father, told The
Star-Ledger of Newark. "How can you take two boys to the police
precinct over
a paper gun? This is very bad judgment."
Superintendent Ernest Smith said he believes the boys meant
no harm, but
district policy requires that police be notified of such incidents.
"I thought this was unfortunate," Smith said. "But, being that
kids are being shot
in schools across the country, children have to be taught they
can't say certain
words in public."
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