Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday August 29 2014, @12:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the was-the-dinosaur-purple? dept.

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.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by monkey999 on Friday August 29 2014, @01:26PM

    by monkey999 (4001) on Friday August 29 2014, @01:26PM (#87181)
    Its been picked up by the BBC [bbc.com] which says he was suspended for a week.
    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.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday August 29 2014, @01:35PM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Friday August 29 2014, @01:35PM (#87186) Homepage Journal

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @02:16PM (#87202)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:30AM (#87424)

        So, basically he wrote dino porn? :-)

        No, he wrote dino snuff porn.

  • (Score: 2) by tynin on Friday August 29 2014, @01:58PM

    by tynin (2013) on Friday August 29 2014, @01:58PM (#87195) Journal

    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @06:41PM (#87329)

    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.