10 yr old with cap gun arrested, accused of making "terroristic threats"

[flvegan]

NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. -- The latest case of zero-tolerance at the public schools has a 10-year-old student sadder and wiser, and facing expulsion and long-term juvenile detention. And it has his mother worried that his punishment has already been harsher than the offense demands.

"I think I shouldn't have brought a gun to school in the first place," said the student, Alandis Ford, sitting at home Thursday night with his mother, Tosha Ford, at his side.

Alandis' gun was a "cap gun," a toy cowboy six-shooter that his mother bought for him.

"We got it from Wal-Mart for $5.96," Tosha Ford said, "in the toy section right next to the cowboy hats. That's what he wanted because it was just like the ones he was studying for the Civil War" in his fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School.

"It kind of reminded me of the guns that I was studying," Alandis said, "because I had brought pictures home of the gun and stuff, and that gun that I had reminded me of the revolver" depicted in his textbook.

Tosha said that Wednesday afternoon, after school, "six police officers actually rushed into the door" of their home. "He opened the door because they're police. And then they just kind of pushed him out of the way, and asked him, 'Well where's the gun, where's the real gun?' And they called him a liar... they booked him, and they fingerprinted him."

Alandis was charged with possessing a weapon on school property and with terroristic acts and threats.

"On the school bus," on Tuesday, Alandis said, "when I dug into my bookbag trying to get my phone out, the boy beside me, he reached in my bookbag and got it and started telling everybody, 'He's got a gun, he's got a gun,' and spread it around the whole bus. So I put it back in my bookbag."

But he said the students kept shouting, "He's going to shoot all y'all, he's got a gun, he's going to bring it to school and shoot all y'all." Did Alandis ever say anything like that or make any threatening moves with his toy gun? "No!"

The school bus driver never caught on to what the students were saying, and as a result never confiscated Alandis' toy gun.

The next afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, Alandis and his cousin went to the home of a friend in the neighborhood, another 10-year-old boy, to play with him.

"And we told him, 'We came over to see if you can come out.' He saw the gun that I had. So he ran in the house and called 911."

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=124359&catid=40&GID=juD5/d++YtmiZjwqGKDay6Tw1TGed4c0A5QCiVJAOvA=

10 year old, cap gun, terrorist. Interesting.

[east texas lib]

1. Seems to have caused quite a stir...

Times have changed from the "play army" and "cowboys and indians" days of the past, evidently.

[csziggy]

2. NEW Today - I think you started something! This note is from the bottom of the story

EDITOR'S NOTE, MAY 13, 2009

To our readers: This story was originally posted in Dec., 2008, as you can see at the top of the story. 11Alive.com did not repost it. It is showing up in the "most read" and "most viewed" sections now, to our surprise, because someone, and we don't know who, found it and linked to it and is sending new readers to it. A lot of new readers. We know the story will fade away again, probably sooner than later, as old news always does, even though the issue remains an important one for communities and schools and families, but we wanted you to know why this particular story popped up again on this website.

:rofl:

[flvegan]

6. I wish it was me.

I found it on Fark, and I'm sure they're Genesis for this spreading again. If 11Alive had a web design that didn't put the Update date behind a graphic, this might not happen.

Regardless, :rofl:

[csziggy]

10. I've heard of the Slashdot Effect, but not the Fark or even the DU Effect!

[MADem]

8. Just shows ta go ya that a shitload of people read FARK!!!!

:rofl:

[gratuitous]

9. December 2008?

So I guess this is another terror attack thwarted (thwarted, I tell you!) by the Bush administration!

You know it's just a matter of time before we hear that from Rush and the Boys Club.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. The boys on our street run around with toy guns all the time pretending to shoot each other

I don't see what the big deal is, and at least one of their dad's is a cop.

[flying rabbit]

4. When cap guns are outlawed...

only outlaws will have cap guns.
:eyes:

[bertman]

5. The inmates are running the asylum. I mean, schools.

Pretty soon, if you say "Bang" in a public place you'll be hooded, abducted, and tortured, never to return to your loved ones.

How will paint crews ever work in schools again? Will caulk guns be classified as weapons of mass terror?

Anyone caught selling caps to a ten-year old to use in his cap gun will be pulling hard time.

HOLY FUCK, we live in a sick, sad, society.

[Ozymanithrax]

7. If a kid can carry a gun into a school and kill is friends...

It is a sick society.

[DCKit]

11. Is there a particular season for Teh Crazy down that way, or does it even matter any more?

GA, TX, FL, AL, MS, SC and, often enough, KS. It's getting to the point that I can't hear anything so damn crazy that I can't imagine something even worse from one of those states.