Free Republic

Darin left his backpack at a friend's house and had to be sent to school with a backup. When he discovered the toy in the bag, knowing it was illegal, Darin turned the contraband into his teacher. "He found the toy gun on the outside pocket," Darin's father Chris Simak told local reporters. "He took it straight to the teacher and said that he wasn't allowed to have it." Darin's teacher followed protocol and brought the first grader to the principal, where he was immediately suspended pending an expulsion hearing. According to the school charter, the punishment for bringing a...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The parents of a 13-year-old California boy killed last month while carrying a plastic replica of an assault rifle filed a civil rights lawsuit on Monday against the sheriff's deputy who shot him ... Deputy Erick Gelhaus, 48, shot Andy Lopez Cruz as the eighth grader was walking near his home in the wine-country town of Santa Rosa carrying an imitation gun he planned to return to a friend, relatives and officials have said..... On Monday, attorney Arnoldo Casillas filed the federal lawsuit against Gelhaus and Sonoma County in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on...

Deputy who shot and killed toy gun-carrying teen, 13, allegedly pulled gun Deputy who shot and killed toy gun-carrying teen, 13, allegedly pulled gun on a driver during traffic stop two months earlier A driver has come forward saying the deputy who shot dead a 13-year-old California boy after mistaking his fake AK-47 as real pulled a gun on him also, after he failed to signal a lane change during a carpool. Jeff Westbrook, 57, of Santa Rosa said he was mistreated by Deputy Erick Gelhaus after being pulled over Aug. 21 in Cotati, so much so that at one...

Two sheriff’s deputies in Northern California shot and killed 13-year-old boy who they thought was carrying an assault rifle, only to find out that the gun the teen was holding was a toy, police and family members have said. The officers, on patrol Tuesday in Sonoma County, reported seeing the boy carrying what appeared to be a black AK-47, reports the AP. A photo made public after the tragedy show a toy weapon with a black magazine cartridge and brown butt.  Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dennis O’Leary told reporters the deputies called for backup and repeatedly ordered the boy to drop the...

When do schools assume legal responsibility for your children? At the school, on the bus, or at the bus stop? The latter is likely the best answer, but no one believes that it starts in your front yard, seventy feet away from the bus stop. Nobody, that is, except perhaps the Virginia Beach City Public School System, which may expel Khalid Caraballo today for shooting a non-lethal pellet pistol in his own front yard last week:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO A suspended seventh grade Virginia Beach student will find out soon if he is expelled for the rest of...

A seventh-grade student in Virginia Beach, Va., has been suspended from school for playing with an airsoft gun with a friend in his front yard while waiting for the school bus. WAVY-TV reports that 13-year-old Khalid Caraballo will find out soon if he will be expelled for "possession, handling and use of a firearm" because the guns were fired at two others playing in Caraballo's yard. snip The school's so-called "zero-tolerance" policy on guns extends to private property, according to the report. snip "It's on your school record. The school said I had possession of a firearm. They aren't going...

When Jane Rainboth was awaken from her sleep by a masked man peering into her bedroom, she reached for the black, semi-automatic pistol on her nightstand. "I got a gun! I got a gun!" she hollered. But it was a trick — Rainboth's gun was a plastic toy. The would-be burglar turned heels and ran out the patio door, with Rainboth in hot pursuit down the hallway of her Deerfield Beach apartment.

Three weeks after a 10-year-old Alexandria boy was arrested for showing a toy gun to another student on a school bus, prosecutors dropped charges against the child Tuesday and his record was scrubbed clean. “We did not feel it was appropriate or productive to proceed with criminal prosecution and believe the matter can be best handled administratively within the school system,” said Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel. The child’s mother, Nakicha Gilbert, said that she was glad her son’s courtroom travails had ended but that “it should’ve never happened” in the first place. The fifth-grader at Douglas MacArthur Elementary...

Pennsylvania girl, 5, suspended for threatening to shoot girl with pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles By Edmund DeMarche Published January 19, 2013 | FoxNews.com A 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl who told another girl she was going to shoot her with a pink Hello Kitty toy gun that blows soapy bubbles has been suspended from kindergarten. Her family has hired an attorney to fight the punishment, which initially was 10 days for issuing a 'terroristic threat.' But her punishment was reduced to two days after her mother met with school officials and had the incident dropped to 'threatening to harm...

If Hawaiian State Rep. Scott Saiki gets his way, guns will be outlawed in Hawaii. Toy guns for kids, that is. Adults can still buy toy guns. Presumably, it is still safe to give them to children. The bill has had its first reading and has been referred to the judiciary committee where, hopefully, it dies.

PROVIDENCE — Dominic Johnson, a 10-year-old fourth-grader with a fledgling Mohawk, brandished his black, long-nosed toy gun and caressed the muzzle appreciatively. “It’s like a shotgun mixed with a rifle,’’ he said, as his mother, April, told him to stop pointing it at nearby children. Soon it would be junk. Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and...

azfamily.com's Marissa Wingate reports a teen went hiking in full military fatigues with a fake gun and prompted women to call 911.

A woman who was robbing a pharmacy at gunpoint was shot by a police officer early Thursday morning after she refused to drop a weapon that turned out to be a toy, San Antonio police said. Officers responding to a robbery in a Walgreens at 6901 San Pedro arrived about 1:00 a.m. to see the female suspect wearing a ski mask and holding a gun as she ordered the manager to give her money from the pharmacy cash register. Police said the woman did not comply with orders to drop the weapon from Officer Roy Naylor and other officers. “At...

Boy, 12, with toy gun shot, killed by police W. Memphis officers were on stakeout BY JACOB QUINN SANDERS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE A West Memphis police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old boy late Friday night, mistaking the child’s silver toy gun for a real handgun, authorities said Saturday. The shooting occurred about 9:53 p.m. while two officers were on a stakeout hoping to break a string of convenience-store armed robberies near North 24th Street and Goodwin Avenue. The officers waited in the dark parking lot of the Steeplechase Apartments just south of Interstate 40 and Interstate 55. They saw two...

Two Potomac teens were arrested for flashing a toy gun at a woman last week... (snip) At about 9:55 p.m. on Thursday, a 29-year-old Rockville woman reported that two boys had aimed a gun at her while driving near the intersection of Westlake Drive and Tuckerman Lane in Bethesda... (snip) The brothers were arrested and charged as juveniles with first-degree assault and released to the custody of their father, police said. Under state law, first-degree assault is a felony that can carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Using a toy weapon in a crime carries the same...

Third grader back in school Suspension canceled over G.I. Joe pistol 02/27/04 HANNAH WOLFSON News staff writer A third-grader suspended for bringing a tiny toy gun to class was back at Birmingham's Sun Valley Elementary School on Thursday and will have the incident wiped from his disciplinary record. Nine-year-old Austin Crittenden expected to be out of school for at least a week and was awaiting a Monday hearing to determine his punishment for bringing a plastic G.I. Joe handgun to school earlier this week. But on Thursday, school officials changed their stand, allowing him back to class. School Superintendent Wayman...

A third-grader at Sun Valley Elementary was suspended this week for bringing a G.I. Joe toy handgun to school. Austin Crittenden, 9, and his family say the school in eastern Birmingham went too far by sending him home for bringing a tiny plastic handgun that accompanied a G.I. Joe action figure. "It's about an inch long," said Vicki Stewart, the boy's grandmother and guardian. "(The principal) had to tape it to a piece of paper to keep from losing it." The length of the suspension has yet to be determined, said Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman. Possible punishments for...

RESTON -- An off-duty Fairfax County police detective arrested a 15-year-old boy at a Starbucks in Reston over the weekend after the boy pulled out a handgun that turned out to be a toy. Police say the boy walked into the coffee shop about 7 pm Saturday and pulled a gun from his waistband. The detective, who was a customer inside the store, then pulled his weapon and ordered the boy to drop the gun. Authorities say it's not clear what the boy intended to do with the gun, which turned out to be a nickel-plated toy. The suspect was...

CAN A student get suspended from school for bringing a toy? He can if it’s a toy gun, even one that can’t possibly be mistaken for a real firearm. In Hampstead last week, two eighth-graders were given 10-day suspensions for playing with a plastic pistol on the school bus. The toy was loaded with plastic pellets, which the boys threw at the other children. The suspensions came shortly after an 8-year-old Sandown boy was suspended for 10 days for carrying an old, inoperable pistol in his book bag. “We concurred it was more serious than what was initially presented,” Assistant...

Terry Wilson-Spence thinks administrators at Spokane Public Schools may have jumped the gun when it comes to her 8-year-old son. The third-grader, along with two other boys, was suspended Friday from Bemiss Elementary School for bringing toy guns to the northeast Spokane school. But, according to Wilson-Spence, the toy guns her son carried in his pocket were for GI Joe action figures. The guns are from only 1 inch to 3 inches long -- half the size of a pencil. "I don't think any child would look at it and be threatened," Wilson-Spence said. But the school district is standing...