Six-Year-Old Suspended From School For Making Hand Gesture

(Silver Spring, MD)  —  A Montgomery County elementary school student was suspended for a day for making a hand gesture of a gun with his forefinger and thumb.  The incident happened last month at Roscoe Nix Elementary in Silver Spring, a week after the Newtown, Connecticut shootings.  School officials sent a letter home to the six-year-old boy’s parents, stating he was not allowed to return to school for a day for the action which they characterized as a threat “to shoot a student.”  The boy’s parents are upset by the way the matter was handled.

The boy’s family attorney filed an appeal Wednesday, asking that the incident be expunged from the boy’s school record, saying he’s a soft-spoken child who was just playing.  According to a statement from Montgomery schools spokesman Dana Tofig, the incident cannot be discussed for privacy reasons but the suspension, quote, “was not a knee-jerk reaction to a single incident.”