TRI In The News

10-Year-Old PA Boy Suspended for Pretend Bow-and-Arrow Shooting

From The Washington Times

A 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy was suspended from school after pretending to shoot his friend with an imaginary bow and arrow, and now his parents are threatening legal action against the school district.

Johnny Jones, a student at South Eastern Middle School-West in Fawn Grove, was suspended in October for gesturing with an imaginary bow and arrow using his No. 2 pencil, attorney John Whitehead, president of the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, told ABC News.

He pretended to shoot his friend with the pencil after the other boy pretended to shoot him with a gun.

Both boys were suspended for breaking the school district’s zero-tolerance policy against weapons, which deals with any type of weapon capable of inflicting serious bodily injury, Mr. Whitehead said.

The Rutherford Institute sent a letter to South Eastern School District demanding the district rescind the suspension and remove all references of it from Johnny’s permanent school record, ABC News reported.

The school district has until Friday to respond before the boy’s parents decide what steps to take next, the report said.

“Parents need to know if their kid makes a sign with their fingers, then they’re going to have a suspension for threatening with a firearm,” said the boy’s mother, Beverly Jones, The York Dispatch reported. “That’s ridiculous.”