In what’s becoming an almost weekly report about schools around the nation, another young student was suspended over government zero-tolerance weapon policies — this time, an 8-year-old Florida boy who fashioned his fingers into the shape of a handgun.
In doing so, he broke the school’s rules against invisible weapons.
The boy, Jordan Bennett, had been playing cops and robbers with his friend at Harmony Community School in Harmony, Fla., Fox News reported. He shaped his fingers like a gun, an act administrators characterized as violence, WFTV reported.
Jordan was suspended for a day.
“He had nothing in his hand. It was a finger gun, a pretend gun,” his mother, Bonnie Bennett said, Fox News reported. “He didn’t threaten violence. He didn’t utter words that were inappropriate. He made a sound and used his fingers, and that was it.”
Ms. Bennett said to WFTV that now she’s worried her son may be labeled a violent offender.
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School officials said the boy violated the district’s code of conduct — specifically, its prohibition against playing with invisible guns. They also refused to discuss with the press additional details about the incident, citing privacy rules. Ms. Bennett, meanwhile, said the school went a bit too far.
“If he would have written an essay about why it was inappropriate, what he did, that would have made more of an impact,” she said.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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