Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 9, 1993 TAG: 9301090147
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium
TOY GUN GETS BOY EXPELLED
An 11-year-old elementary school pupil has been expelled for bringing to school a 1 1/4 -inch toy gun trinket purchased for 25 cents in a supermarket vending machine."He's hurt. He's really hurt," said Inell Smith, the boy's mother. "He was just crying. He said, `It seems like everything I do is wrong.' I told him that that was not true."
School officials refused to discuss the case because of potential litigation but said other students contend that the boy wielded the trinket as though it were real. Smith said he kept it in his pocket.
Smith's son was expelled in December after a teacher at Nansemond-Parkway Elementary School saw the trinket.
Smith asked that her son's name not be used and would not allow him to be interviewed.
"I felt like even though he had that in a school, they could have spoken with him," she said. "They could have said, `Even though this is a trinket, this looks like a gun. You can't bring this to school.' I feel like I've been done wrong, that things have been blown out of proportion."
Since the expulsion, the youth has been attending an alternative school program. Smith has hired a lawyer to appeal the case to the School Board on Jan. 14. If the board turns down the appeal, lawyer James H. Flippen III said he will recommend going to court.
Flippen contends the school policy on weapons does not apply to ornaments or miniatures. "It doesn't have any movable parts," he said. "It's readily apparent to any reasonable person that this is not a weapon."
About 40 Suffolk students have been expelled since September for carrying weapons or weapon-like toys to school, said Milton R. Liverman, the school district's supervisor of research and pupil personnel services. Fourteen of the expulsions were for look-alike weapons, he said.