Teen Arrested, Suspended for Shooting a Dinosaur (In a Story He Wrote)
The kid was charged with disorderly conduct.
Now that summer is over and school is starting up again, it's time for the torrent of ridiculous "zero tolerance" suspensions and arrests to resume.
Summerville High School in Summerville, South Carolina, is wasting no time: A 16-year-old student was arrested and suspended for writing a story in which he used a gun to kill a dinosaur. The student, Alex Stone, was assigned by a teacher to write a story about himself. Stone chose to embellish his story with obviously fictional details, like dinosaurs. But the teacher saw the word "gun" and the rest is history, according to NBC-12:
Stone said in his "status" he wrote a fictional story that involved the words "gun" and "take care of business."
"I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business," Stone said.
Stone says his statements were taken completely out of context.
"I could understand if they made him re-write it because he did have "gun" in it. But a pet dinosaur?" said Alex's mother Karen Gray."I mean first of all, we don't have dinosaurs anymore. Second of all, he's not even old enough to buy a gun."
Investigators say the teacher contacted school officials after seeing the message containing the words "gun" and "take care of business," and police were then notified on Tuesday.
The police arrested Stone and charged him with disorderly conduct. He was also suspended from school for a week.
And just like that, the pop-tart gun suspension has been dethroned as the most absurd zero tolerance story. And it's not even September yet! Well done, Summerville.
Readers, welcome back to public school.