A Virginia school suspended one of its students for taking too long to report that a fellow pupil had a bullet.
An 11-year-old sixth-grader was suspended for a day and a half at St John the Apostle Catholic School in Virginia Beach after he waited two hours before reporting that his friend had shown him a bullet, attorney Tim Anderson said, according to The Washington Post.
Anderson represents the student and his mother, Rachel Wigand.
The school faced threats of violence last week after the news of the suspension. St John’s was closed down for two days and a man in North Carolina was arrested.
Officials at the school pointed to the recent school shooting in Winder, Georgia at Apalachee High School , in which four people were killed and nine were injured, when defending their punishment, saying that the delay could have had disastrous consequences.
“The message it sends is, instead of ‘See something, say something,’ the kids are better off not saying anything,” Anderson told the paper.