High School Student Disarms Gunman – Gets Suspended For ‘Involvement in Violent Incident’

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**Lordhat**

http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/03/5406-student-suspended-for-disarming-gunman/

A Florida high school student and his friends discovered the truth of the cynical adage that “no good deed goes unpunished” when he was suspended for disarming a fellow student on the school bus. The teens, all students at Cypress Lake High School in Fort Myers, Florida, were on a school bus when two students got into a heated argument. One of them then pulled a loaded .22 caliber revolver on the other, and aimed it at his head.

One of the suspended students, who spoke later with WFTX-TV news, knew instantly that this was no prank.

“I think he was really going to shoot him right then and there,” said the unnamed student, whose identity is being kept secret for his safety. “Not taking no pity.”

Witnessing this life-threatening situation, the teen and two others tackled and disarmed the suspect. When the police arrived at the scene, they arrested the gun-wielding student, Quadryle Davis, and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon “without intent” to kill.

If the teens who stopped this aggravated assault expected to be hailed as heroes when they returned to school, they were certainly in for a surprise. What actually happened was that, the very next day, the school suspended all three of them. The teen who spoke to WFTX-TV news was shocked.

“How they going to suspend me for doing the right thing?”

The school justified the suspension, which lasted for the rest of the week, on the ground that the students who prevented a deadly shooting were part of an “incident” involving a weapon. Alberto Rodriquez, speaking on behalf of the Lee County School District, stated that “If there is a potentially dangerous situation, Florida law allows the principal to suspend a student immediately pending hearing.”

The unnamed student’s mother was disgusted with the whole thing. “Those kids had to fight for their lives,” she said. “All the kids that was involved in this, they should have a pat on their backs because they did the right thing to save someone from burying their child.”

Those who pay attention to the news might be a little less surprised than, although quite as disgusted as, the young man’s mother. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, schools around the country have reacted with unseemly hysteria at the slightest hint of “gun thinking.” No guns need actually be involved for the schools to act.

In mid-February, a seven-year-old boy in Loveland, Colorado was suspended from school after he entertained himself by throwing an imaginary grenade at a box that he had peopled with equally imaginary bad guys. According to Mary Blair Elementary School, the boy broke the school’s rigid rule against pretend weapons and pretend fighting. One assumes that those activities take the children’s attention away from the pretend learning that goes on in too many American public schools.

One would think that this “imaginary grenade” event, which was widely mocked, would have stopped schools in their mad rush to imagine guns into oblivion, but such was not the case.

Somebody needs to slap the gak out of that principle.

**RazorMind**

Aint nobody got time for that!

**RatBot**

I agree with the school, that kid totally shoulda let that other kid get shot in the head.

*facepalm*

....also Quadryle? lolwut

**BlapBlapBlap**

Wait wat.

Are people going to hide behind the argument that somebody disarming a violent peer leads to them becoming a serial killer?

**SilverMK2**

I can understand that a school has a policy for dealing with children in violent confrontations (generally by punishing everyone involved, even those acting to defend themselves), however, I would have thought that this kind of situation might have prompted a slight overlooking of the rules.

**Howard A Treesong**

I can see that when there's been a violent incident then you may want a cooling off period while things are investigated and feelings are still running high. After all, the pupil that pulled a gun will have friends in the school.

That said, if that is the intent of this then it should be handled in a positive manner instead of simply 'suspending' pupils and enraging family by giving a poor explanation for their thinking.

**Lordhat**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I can see that when there's been a violent incident then you may want a cooling off period while things are investigated and feelings are still running high. After all, the pupil that pulled a gun will have friends in the school.

That said, if that is the intent of this then it should be handled in a positive manner instead of simply 'suspending' pupils and enraging family by giving a poor explanation for their thinking.

That's a more..... deductive response than I had. I still think the party(ies) responsible for a suspension should have the gak slapped out of them. "Leave of absence" accomplishes the same thing, without being immediately branded as punishment.

**Relapse**

If that crap went on here, I'd be pulling my kids and home schooling them.

**Rented Tritium**

When a cop fires their gun, they're automatically given X days paid leave by policy, completely regardless of the circumstances.

If the school is concerned about tensions after the incident, as has been suggested, a policy like this would help a lot.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

close all the schools on that bus route,

while they hire armed guards to man the airport style security checkpoints they clearly need to install at all school bus stops & the school(s) themselves

after all if the student hadn't been disarmed he'd have brought the gun to school

**Emperorlives**

Trolling is a violation of Dakka's terms of membership. -Mannahnin

**Emperorlives**

Edited by Mannahnin

**RatBot**

Oh wait, you're the guy who posted the thread about the Ugandan space probe.

Congratualtions, you are now the second person ever in the history of Dakka to be added to my ignore list. Looking through your short posting history, I don't think I'll be missing much.

Though I do agree that the school is being pretty fething stupid in this case.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Ignoring whatever the hell just got posted, this is pretty dumb. Especially with a suspension, which is a punishment and does go on a student's record.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Let's ignore that guy okay?

**Emperorlives**

Edited by Mannahnin

**Inquisitor Ehrenstein**

And I thought I had the most slowed example of schools being idiots about guns today...

**Emperorlives**

Edited by Mannahnin

**Kovnik Obama**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Spoiler:

Let's ignore that guy okay?

Yeah, thanks. I always forget that some people find doing this gak amusing.

**Kanluwen**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Ignoring whatever the hell just got posted, this is pretty dumb. Especially with a suspension, which is a punishment and does go on a student's record.

That is dependent upon the school in question.

I know from personal experience that the high school I went to would leave things off your record if they did not agree with the punishment they were forced to give due to the Zero Tolerance policies.

**Fifty**

On the surface, this sounds ridiculous. There is the possibility, however, that there is a side to the story we are not getting, like the three suspended students having a history of fighting and/or bullying. That seems unlikely, however.

As for the "leave of absence" instead of suspension suggestion, that sounds sensible, but if it is anything like the UK, impossible.

Over here, you have two choices - exclude, or put into isolation. Anything else and you are deemed to be denying the kids an education. What we tend to do, however, is go for either an "inclusion" (isolation) or a short exclusion to allow for a period of investigation. However, the exclusions only happen when we KNOW there is enough to justify the days we are excluding for, and may wish to add more once we have the full facts. That does not sound like the case here.

**Kanluwen**

Lordhat wrote:
Howard A Treesong wrote:
I can see that when there's been a violent incident then you may want a cooling off period while things are investigated and feelings are still running high. After all, the pupil that pulled a gun will have friends in the school.

That said, if that is the intent of this then it should be handled in a positive manner instead of simply 'suspending' pupils and enraging family by giving a poor explanation for their thinking.

That's a more..... deductive response than I had. I still think the party(ies) responsible for a suspension should have the gak slapped out of them. "Leave of absence" accomplishes the same thing, without being immediately branded as punishment.

I meant to reply to this part earlier but clean forgot to.

With the way the "zero tolerance" policies work, any involvement in a violent incident results in a suspension unless you have a really quick tongue and can get sympathy as quickly as possible from administrators. There's also how the administrators/faculty perceive you which comes into play. If they actually know you fairly well or have a perception of you which garners favor, they are more likely to feel sympathetic towards you and not mete out a punishment.

In this particular case, the "suspension" was likely not just for the zero tolerance policies but also for insurance liabilities and other sundry reasons. They cannot really be seen as endorsing this kind of behavior, and I sincerely doubt this situation comes up enough to warrant a rewrite of the rules.
I fully expect that the student is not going to get a black mark on his record (or even if he does, it will likely be balanced out with 'off the record' praise in the same entry) and likely get a bit of a pass from his teachers regarding his assignments during the suspension.

**Seaward**

We need to ban .22s,

Also, high school students.

**Mr Nobody**

Obviously, these suspended kids should rename themselves batman.

**Rented Tritium**

It would be really easy in a Florida school to do the "leave of absence" method. It would, however, require the student to go along with it.

You justify it as a medical absence. The student needs time off for psychological reasons after such a traumatic incident. The school gives them some excused sickdays basically.

**Relapse**

I'm totaly on the side of the student that got suspended since I was in a similar situation at a hotel I worked in when I lived in New Orleans.
The short version is that I wrestled a gunman to the ground before he could shoot someone and held him in a joint lock until the cops came to get him.
The hotel management were total pricks about the whole incident.

**djones520**

What have schools come to? When I was in 2nd grade there was this kid who kept tripping people on the bus. Non stop, he'd do it every day. One day I was fed up with it, and punched him in the face.

We get hauled into the principals office, he asked me why I punched the kid, I explained it, and he sent me on my way, without another word on the matter.

**Seaward**

djones520 wrote:
What have schools come to? When I was in 2nd grade there was this kid who kept tripping people on the bus. Non stop, he'd do it every day. One day I was fed up with it, and punched him in the face.

We get hauled into the principals office, he asked me why I punched the kid, I explained it, and he sent me on my way, without another word on the matter.

Well, to be fair, it's difficult to raise a generation of soft, entitled douchebags without a variety of absurdly PC rules governing their academic lives.

**Mannahnin**

Well, to be fair, schools are in kind of an impossible situation, dealing with soft, entitled, douchebag parents demanding that their special snowflakes be kept perfectly safe from all harm, and awarded the great grades they all obviously deserve.

**timetowaste85**

Howard makes a good point-giving the students time off to "cope" is a good thing. However, if it goes down that they are actually suspended for saving a life...the families need to sue for the principal's forced retirement. He doesn't deserve to be running a school. Honestly, I sometimes wonder how this world hasn't actually come to an end, with all the stupidity everywhere. Honestly, there are some days that I feel unclean just for being human.