12-year-old suspended in Colorado over toy gun seen in virtual class
A 12-year old boy has been suspended for a toy gun he never brought to school.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KDVR) – A 12-year-old boy has been suspended for having a toy gun he never brought to school.
Isaiah Elliott attends Grand Mountain, a K-8 grade school south of Colorado Springs.
In late August, the seventh grader was attending an online art class when a teacher saw Isaiah flash a toy gun across his computer screen. The toy in question is a neon green and black handgun with an orange tip with the words “Zombie Hunter” printed on the side.
The teacher notified the school principal who suspended Isaiah for five days and called the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a welfare check on the boy without calling his parents first.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if they were going to bust down the door,” said Isaiah. “My heart was beating super fast.”
“It was really frightening and upsetting for me as a parent, especially as the parent of an African-American young man, especially given what’s going on in our country right now,” said Isaiah’s father, Curtis Elliott.
Curtis’ wife Dani Elliott was equally furious with the school’s decision to notify her, only after deputies were on their way to the family’s home.
“For them to go as extreme as suspending him for five days, sending the police out, having the police threaten to press charges against him because they want to compare the virtual environment to the actual in-school environment is insane,” said Dani Elliott.
A sheriff’s department report confirms the teacher, “said she assumed it was a toy gun but was not certain.”
“If her main concern was his safety, a two-minute phone call to me or my husband could easily have alleviated this whole situation to where I told them it was fake,” said Dani.
Neither parent knew the school was recording their son’s virtual class but said the district refused to provide the video to them when they requested it.
The Elliotts said their son was traumatized by deputies telling the 12-year-old his behavior could’ve led to criminal charges and might in the future if he were to do something similar again.
“He was in tears when the cops came. He was just in tears. He was scared. We all were scared. I literally was scared for his life,” said Curtis Elliot, fearful that deputies might overreact to having the school principal tell them a young Black boy was potentially armed with a gun.
Administration with the school district refused an interview request from FOX31 but did email a statement:
“Privacy laws prevent us from sharing students’ personal information which includes disciplinary action,” the statement reads. “We follow all school board policies whether we are in-person learning or distance learning. We take the safety of all our students and staff very seriously. Safety is always our number one priority.”
The district is now receiving dozens of critical comments on its Facebook page. In response, the district denies its response was based on race or discrimination but seemed to acknowledge it recorded Isaiah Elliot’s virtual class without parental permission.
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