A 10-year-old boy was suspended from Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio last week for pointing his finger like a gun at another student, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
"I was just playing around," fifth-grader Nathan Entingh told the Dispatch. "People play around like this a lot at my school."
However, district spokesman Jeff Warner said Devonshire Principal Patricia Price warned students before about punishments that would result from incidents like this.
"The kids were told, 'If you don't stop doing this type of stuff, there would be consequences,'" he said. "It's just been escalating." Warner added that warnings consisted of three newsletters sent home with the kids.
Nathan's father, Paul, does not feel that suspension was necessary for his son.
"He said he was playing," Paul Entingh said. "It would even make more sense maybe if he brought a plastic gun that looked like a real gun or something, but it was his finger."
Both the school district and Entingh said that other students were not offended or scared when Nathan pointed his finger like a gun, and his teacher was the first one to notice his hand gesture.
As the Dispatch points out, zero-tolerance gun policies popped up in many Columbus-area schools following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, resulting is similar punishments like Nathan's for other children.
