An 8-year-old Florida boy was suspended from school after using his finger as a pretend gun while playing cops and robbers with his friends.
Jordan Bennett was suspended for a day after administrators at Harmony Community School in Harmony, Fla., said the gesture was an act of violence, WFTV.com reported.
His mother, Bonnie, told the station she's concerned that her son may labeled violent with a suspension now on his academic record.
"He had nothing in his hand. It was a finger gun, a pretend gun," Bonnie Bennett said. "He didn't threaten violence. He didn't utter words that were inappropriate. He made a sound and used his fingers and that was it."
School district officials told the station its code of conduct prohibits students from playing with invisible guns. Bonnie Bennett believes there are more effective ways the district could have disciplined her son.
"If he would have written an essay about why it was inappropriate, what he did, that would have made more of an impact," she said.
The school district told WFTV.com that, due to student confidentiality, it cannot comment on Jordan's specific case.
Last month, two seventh-grade students in Virginia Beach, Va., were handed long-term suspensions that will last until the end of the school year for playing with an airsoft gun in one of their front yards while waiting for the school bus.
In the Virginia incident, the school defended the suspensions, arguing that its so-called "zero-tolerance" policy on guns extends to private property, according to a WAVY-TV report.
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