3rd-Graders Aimed to Hurt Teacher


Cops: 3rd-Graders Aimed to Hurt Teacher
By RUSS BYNUM - 3 hours ago

WAYCROSS, Ga. (AP) - A group of third-graders plotted to attack their
teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items
for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and
cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary
School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony
Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher
that a girl had brought a weapon to school. Tanner said the students
apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal
paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her with the
knife.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have
accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they
weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been
successful? We don't know."

The children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently mad at the teacher because she
had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third
arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told
investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had
decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, `We thought they were just kidding,'" Currie said.
"Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective
he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably
too young to be sentenced to a youth detention center.

Police seized a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs, duct
tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and the paperweight from the
students, Tanner said.

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9
and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who
brought tape. He said all three students faced charges of conspiracy to
commit aggravated assault, and both girls were being charged with bringing
weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term
suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school
system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had
been back to school since the case came to light.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students
with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed
development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to
cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to
clean up after the attack.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students
actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

He said the teacher told detectives the children involved weren't known as
troublemakers.

"You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may
have thought this was like a cartoon - we do whatever and then she stands up
and she's OK. That's a hard call."

The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren't
allowed to question the children without their parents' or guardians'
consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children's names.

Martin told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that
administrators would follow school system policy and state law in
disciplining the students.

"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin
said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not
about carrying this through, and that's what we did."

Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for
the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.

Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that
any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to
be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

"We don't want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The
one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else's child at
lunch or out on the playground."

"This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids," Center
Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper.



http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g84E-NqKavdkNfL6nv-ixkYQFiSgD8VPBR8G2


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