I really find this story rather horrifying. It was a well thought out, organized plot.


Cops: Third-graders plotted teacher attack
The Associated Press
updated 10:50 a.m. ET, Wed., April. 2, 2008

WAYCROSS, Georgia - A group of children ages 8 to 10 apparently were mad at their teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, authorities say.

That led the third-graders, as many as nine boys and girls, to plot an attack on the teacher at Center Elementary School in south Georgia.

Police Chief Tony Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a glass paperweight, bind her with handcuffs and duct tape and then stab her with a broken steak knife.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, and another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

School officials had alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had taken a weapon to school.

Tanner said the teacher told detectives the children weren't known as troublemakers.

"You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon — we do whatever and then she stands up and she's OK. That's a hard call."

The purported target teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, 'We thought they were just kidding,'" Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention center.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9 and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who brought tape. He said they face charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls are being charged with taking weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.

School system policy says any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

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Knock the teacher unconscious with a paperweight. Bind her with duct tape, restrain her with handcuffs, and then stab her with a steak knife. This is how 8 to 10 year old children are thinking and acting?

What explains this kind of behavior?

How seriously should this be taken, and how should these children be punished?

What explains this type of behaviour?

Movies. Sounds like these kids have been watching movies like "Home Alone" where the clever kid outwits the adults. Most kids would not actually go through with it, but if there are one or two little psychopaths in the crowd, watch out.

Assuming that these children can differentiate fantasy from reality, and that they know right from wrong, how should they be punished? Should they be regarded, and charged, as criminals?

Are the children who devised this plot too dangerous to be left in a public school setting? Suppose they had plotted to harm another child (rather than an adult) in this kind of systematic manner.

These are the items the children had which the police confiscated

Knife, handcuffs, duct tape, etc

I am not sure about punishment What on earth could the form of a punishment be?
I do think they should all be analysed and counselled . If they don't realise how wrong it was , they need some sort of support.
I also wonder about the teacher. What sort of message/ behaviour is she revealing to receive such treatment from young children? This is not a normal situation is it? So what sort of person is she, I wonder.

The teacher is apparently a veteran special education teacher.

But I wouldn't see the teacher as being responsible, in any way, for provoking this sort of conspiracy. No matter what the teacher had done (and she apparently did no more than routine discipline) these children, young as they are, have to be held accountable in some manner. And other children at the school have to be protected from such potentially dangerous peers.

Ten year olds have been known to commit murders

Ten Year Old Murderer


The District Attorney said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9 and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who brought tape. He said they face charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls are being charged with taking weapons to school.

I find it deeply disturbing that a group of such young children would even hatch such an elaborate plot to deliberately harm someone. And the fact that they assigned different roles to those involved (one would cover the classroom windows, one would clean up, etc) does suggest that they knew how to formulate and methodically carry out a true criminal plot.

So much for the innocence of childhood...

"[the kids decided to kill the teacher after the] teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair."

http://wtop.com/?nid=104&sid=1378071

I don't wonder so much about the teacher...but what kind of homes are these children in? Kids learn this sort of thing from hearing their parents talk, from video games and the tv programs they watch.
There were teachers we all despised when I was a kid but I never once heard other kids say anything worse than "I hate her - I hope she quits." It never occurred to us to wish somebody dead. I t isn't normal - unless a child is being raised in a home with actual violence in it. And maybe a father or mother who casually mentions killing somebody or slicing them up.
Lately we've had a problem with a boy in my 11 year old daughter's class. He was finally suspended for 'terroristic threatening' toward her. Fortunately, this is a good school where they pay real attention to threats and do everything they can to prevent such threats from becoming reality.
I don't think it would naturally occur to a child to actively scheme and try to execute such plans on their own.

In grade school we had a kid named Chucky. He was trouble.