A 13-year-old was suspended from school for drawing a stick figure holding a gun

(Photo: Courtesy Richard Adkins for WRAL News)
(Photo: Courtesy Richard Adkins for WRAL News)

A North Carolina father claims a middle school overreacted when it suspended his 13-year-old son for two days over a drawing, WRAL reports. The drawing, one of many doodles in the boy’s possession, depicted a stick figure armed with a gun. The suspension was issued earlier in the year, before the Parkland shooting.

James Herring said there was “nothing violent” about the images drawn by his son, explaining that the seventh-grader is an avid hunter, but has no emotional issues or violent tendencies.

“I see a guy in a race car souped-up,” Herring told WRAL. “I see a tower that he built. I see him holding his gun, he’s a deer hunter. I see him with a magician and I see him as a Ninja Turtle. “He’s just expressing himself, nothing violent. When I see that, I see a normal 13-year-old boy. I drew pictures like this, any other person of his age drew drawings like this. It’s nothing to get expelled from school for.”

(Photo: Courtesy Richard Adkins for WRAL News)
(Photo: Courtesy Richard Adkins for WRAL News)

But officials at Roseboro-Salemburg Middle School in Roseboro, N.C., disagree.

“Due to everything happening in the nation, we’re just being extravigilant about all issues of safety,” said Sampson County Schools superintendent Eric Bracy.

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