Students suspended for tackling armed teen

While riding home on the school bus recently, three teens made a split-second decision that likely saved another student’s life and earned them an immediate suspension.
The Florida students noticed a schoolmate pointing a revolver at another student while threatening to shoot. The trio jumped into action, wrestling the gun away and preventing what could have easily become another senseless tragedy.
One of the students spoke to media but requested not to be identified.
“I think he was really going to shoot him right then and there,” the student said, noting the armed teen, Quadryle Davis, was a football player who had threatened to shoot a fellow member of the team over a personal beef.
According to Davis’ arrest report, his .22 caliber handgun was loaded and he was “pointing the gun directly” at an individual while “threatening to shoot him.” Despite the report, his initial charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon contained the caveat it was committed without intent to kill.
The students whose quick thinking likely saved a life certainly perceived an intent and did what they felt needed to be done. School administrators, on the other hand, felt differently and promptly issued an emergency suspension for each student involved.
Accused of being a part of an incident involving a weapon, the school’s principal made use of a state law that “allows the principal to suspend a student immediately pending a hearing,” a district source explained.
While it is technically true these three teens were involved in an incident with a weapon, they were only involved to the extent that they disarmed a potential threat. Punishing everyone involved sends an irrational and discouraging message.
This principal could stand to learn something from the mother of one of the suspended students, who said the brave youth “should have a pat on their backs because they did the right thing to save someone from burying their child.”
They most assuredly did do the right thing and I can only hope their ridiculous treatment by the school does not dissuade any other youth from jumping in when needed.
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