Two Maryland boys playing "cops and robbers" in the schoolyard at recess were suspended for pointing their fingers like imaginary guns. The incident comes on the heels of a similar case recently at another Maryland elementary school.
Two 6-old-boys at White Marsh Elementary School in Trappe were suspended for a day last Thursday for what one parent called "a childish games of cops and robbers in the school yard" in which they shot at each other with their fingers.
"This is easily the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard of," Army Staff Sgt. Stephen Grafton, the father of one of the first-graders,
told MyEasternShoreMD.com. "This was by no means an offense that warranted a suspension. It was a pair of 6-year-olds playing with imaginary pistols, one of whom has a father who is charged by the United States with using firearms in his defense."
The mother of one of the boys said the principal told her the suspension in his case would be withdrawn. School officials declined to comment, citing federal confidentiality laws.
A similar incident at a different Maryland elementary school was reported two weeks ago when another 6-year-old
boy was suspended for aiming his finger at a student at his school in Silver Spring and saying "pow." The school reportedly reversed its decision after the boy's parents appealed.
With the nation still in shock after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook school shooting, some aren't surprised that school administrators are taking these incidents seriously, but others think officials are just overreacting to innocent horseplay.
"What they're doing is looking at the worst possible interpretation of a young, naive 6-year-old," said Robin Ficker, an attorney hired by the Silver Spring boy's family, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "This is a little child who can't form the intent to do anything like that."
Child psychologist Dr. Joe Kaine agrees.
“I can certainly appreciate that at school, that’s not a type of play that they are going to endorse and I certainly support that, but that’s where we educate the time and place for doing things,” he told CBS Baltimore.
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