Plastic pellet incident at Va. school ends in expulsion, assault charges

[RamboLiberal]

Andrew Mikel II admits it was a stupid thing to do. In December, bored and craving attention, the 14-year-old used a plastic tube to blow small plastic pellets at fellow students in Spotsylvania High School. In one lunch period, he scored three hits.

"They flinched. They looked annoyed," Mikel said.

The school district saw it as more than a childish prank. School officials expelled him for possession and use of a weapon, and they called a deputy sheriff to the scene, said Mikel and his father, Andrew Mikel Sr.

The younger Mikel, a freshman, said he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault. The case was first reported by the Web site WorldNetDaily.

Spotsylvania school officials declined to comment on the incident, citing student confidentiality rules. But documents that the school produced when Mikel's father filed a Freedom of Information Act request show internal division over the matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020104097.html

[Urban Prairie]

1. So Andy apparently couldn't be satisfied with just plain old-fashioned spitballs

like many of my classmates used long ago to annoy fellow students?

Still, being expelled for that seems too extreme, and a suspension would have been more suitable punishment...but he might have injured someone's eye if one of those plastic pellets hit it with enough force, I suppose.