WCSC reported that a South Carolina High School student was arrested and suspended after writing about killing a dinosaur using a gun in a class assignment. Attorney David Aylor, who is representing 16-year-old Alex Stone, said his client's arrest over a creative writing assignment was "completely absurd," and is seeking to appeal the suspension. "Students were asked to write about themselves and a creative Facebook status update – just days into the new school year – and my client was arrested and suspended after a school assignment."
Stone said he and his classmates were told in class to write a few sentences about themselves, and a "status" as if it was a Facebook page. 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"
“I could understand if they made him rewrite it because he did have ‘gun’ in it. But a pet dinosaur?” said his 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.”
Additional coverage here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by monkey999 on Friday August 29 2014, @01:26PM
This wouldn't have happened if he'd said he killed it with a bow and arrow.
It's the school principal and teacher who should be arrested:
Firstly, the first amendment is there for a reason: schools should not be censoring students.
Secondly, they were wasting police time. They had no reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed.
The US is becoming more like North Korea every day.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday August 29 2014, @01:35PM
Guns and taking care of business. Words that'll get you in trouble in school due to all the school massacres. But.... It was about A FUCKING DINOSAUR!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @02:16PM
Wait, it was about a fucking dinosaur? So, basically he wrote dino porn? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:30AM
No, he wrote dino snuff porn.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Friday August 29 2014, @01:58PM
This should have been handled so differently. Perhaps it could have been a lesson in decorum that the teacher could have helped persuade the kid that writing about killing your pets is in poor taste. Instead it got turned into a lesson that authority is not your friend. I suspect this kid is going to live a life of disdain and distrust of the system, and as someone who was also arrested in school at the age of 16, I feel for him.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @06:41PM
Surely there's no laws against shooting a dinosaur. But they can let a 9 year old shoot an uzi at a gun range, resulting in the instructor being killed.