Third Graders Plot to Kill Teacher

The Vortex Empire · Post by **The Vortex Empire** » 2008-04-02 05:24pm

WAYCROSS, Georgia (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, 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.
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"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. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Why can't this be an April Fools Joke? Though I doubt that 3rd graders could have knocked the teacher out with that paperweight.

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2008-04-02 10:27pm

yeah I saw that on news. Interesting.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-04-02 10:36pm

http://www.city-data.com/city/Waycross-Georgia.html

It's a shithole.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2008-04-02 11:33pm

Yet another charming story from the ass-end of my country. Emo high schoolers I can understand and expect, but this?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-04-02 11:34pm

JME2 wrote:Yet another charming story from the ass-end of my country. Emo high schoolers I can understand and expect, but this?

What do you expect from a town where the median income is half the median for the rest of Georgia, which is itself not exactly the Warren Buffet of states?

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2008-04-03 01:27pm

Oh, it gets better.... EXPERTS say that they doubt kids would have hurt her. Not that they could not but that the would not. Why? because they think [quote=" "child psychiatry expert" "]it is unlikely that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.[/quote] really? I think the very detailed plan was pretty good indication that the can seriously intend to hurt someone. Now do they understand what the full consequences of their actions are? probably not all of them at that age do. BUT they should know what they were doing was wrong.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-04-03 01:34pm

Sure, they don't INTEND to hurt her. I don't doubt they didn't realize what they were planning on doing would result in the loss of her life. I mean, one kid was supposed to bring a TOY GUN to shoot her. That doesn't change the fact that MOST of these kids are fucked in the head and need to be separated from normal society until such time as they are deemed harmless.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2008-04-03 01:41pm

Even if most of them didn't really plan on hurting her I can just see the momentum of the plan being such that she would have been hurt and possibly killed.

If they managed to knock her out and handcuff her all it would have taken was one of the kids thinking that they had to go through with the next part of the plan and the teacher would have been stabbed.

Sure I think there's a good chance the kids would have chickend out before actually trying to knock the teacher out but the kids could also have been scared of backing out on the rest of the group.

I wonder if this teacher is going to go on teaching much longer. She'd have to be pretty dedicated to teaching to want to keep doing it after this.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2008-04-03 02:45pm

Reminds me of that scene in Robocop 2 where Little Leaguers were shoplifting and bludgeoning people and that Girl Cop had to shoot their coach.

I wonder what kind of model citizens these kids will grow up into.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2008-04-03 03:15pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Sure, they don't INTEND to hurt her. I don't doubt they didn't realize what they were planning on doing would result in the loss of her life. I mean, one kid was supposed to bring a TOY GUN to shoot her. That doesn't change the fact that MOST of these kids are fucked in the head and need to be separated from normal society until such time as they are deemed harmless.

The toy gun was to intimate people while they stabbed her to death.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-04-03 04:02pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Sure, they don't INTEND to hurt her. I don't doubt they didn't realize what they were planning on doing would result in the loss of her life. I mean, one kid was supposed to bring a TOY GUN to shoot her. That doesn't change the fact that MOST of these kids are fucked in the head and need to be separated from normal society until such time as they are deemed harmless.
The toy gun was to intimate people while they stabbed her to death.

Well, if they thought a toy gun would intimidate people, they probably didn't have a good grasp of facts and logic.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2008-04-03 04:09pm

They are third graders, they have not yet had logic classes

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2008-04-03 05:14pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:They are third graders, they have not yet had logic classes

They're American third graders in Georgia. Logic is for 'durty furiners'.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2008-04-03 05:14pm

Sounds like a book I read in high school. Killing Mr. Griffin

Link

Basically the book is about a group of teenagers that kidnap their teacher to scare him into being less strick but because they don't let him take his heart medication he dies on them.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-04-03 05:25pm

So these kids were in the 8-10 age range. Yeah, they could have done some damage.
Swinging and throwing are taught in Little League, and they teach you to do it as hard as you can. Also, I'm not sure if kids this age have learned restraint yet.
What I mean, is that as you get older you learn that hitting hurts, not just the other person, but yourself as well, and you tend to hold back and not hit as hard as you can, and you have to basically retrain yourself to do it. These kids may just be giving all their worth with their "weapons".