I thought the days of schools calling the police for finger guns were over. But clearly that’s not the case. And while these are all absurd stories, this one might take the cake:
MYFOX8 – A Pennsylvania elementary school called the police after a kindergartner with Down syndrome made a finger gun at her teacher. Officials concluded there wasn’t a threat, but the girl’s mother said they went too far.
Maggie Gaines called on the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District to update its threat assessment policy after her 6-year-old daughter Margot was questioned by administrators for making a gun gesture at her elementary school teacher and pretended to shoot her.
Gaines said it was a harmless expression of anger. But Margot’s school in southeast Pennsylvania determined her actions appeared threatening, so they conducted a threat assessment.
Administrators concluded that Margot made a “transient threat” and didn’t intend to harm anyone, but they still called Tredyffrin police.
The district said calling law enforcement is part of its safety protocol. But Gaines said that in her daughter’s case, the district misinterpreted its own policy.
“It was very clear from the beginning that she didn’t understand what she was saying,” Gaines told KYW. “Her having Down syndrome is one aspect of it, but I’m sure most six year olds don’t understand what that means.”
She said police filed a report on the incident that mentioned Margot by name. Tredyffrin police didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment, but the school district told CNN that police didn’t create criminal or juvenile records for Margot.
The incident occurred in November, but Gaines didn’t take her grievances to the school board until late last month. An organization that advocates for local children with learning disabilities shared her statement to the school board.
“I am well aware that we live in a time when parents are concerned for their children’s safety in school,” she wrote in her letter to the school board, citing the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “But I also think our society and our schools across the country have overreacted with respect to perceived threats, resulting in even finger guns wielded by kindergarteners being viewed as cause to alert authorities.”
It might halfway be understandable if a high school student pointed a finger gun at a teacher, as if to threaten them, and the school called police out of caution. But a 6-year-old with Down syndrome? Exactly what threat did this teacher or school administrator think this girl posed?
It’s just ridiculous the dumb things that schools will do in the name of ‘safety’. And yet in many of these school shootings, we later find out that the school didn’t do what it should have, or that there were lapses in protocols or policies when dealing with a potentially threatening kid.
I know school shootings are horrific things and we want to prevent them as much as possible. But calling the cops on a 6-year-old girl with Down syndrome doesn’t do anything but make the school look like it’s run by someone who is too woke or too triggered.