Five-Year-Old Faces Suspension After Building Lego Gun

Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Jan. 31, 2013

A five-year-old boy was threatened with suspension by school officials in Massachusetts after he built a small toy gun out of lego bricks and started to play-shoot his classmates.

Joseph Cardosa was given a written warning by officials at Hyannis West Elementary School, Cape Cod, when he fashioned the crude toy in an after-school activity program.

The boy was told that if he commits the crime a second time he will be suspended for two weeks.

Cardosa’s parents reacted by accusing school administrators of over-reacting.

“Kids are taught, ‘Here’s a squirt gun, this is fun,’ so this is fun to him… he’s running around playing,” the boy’s mother, Shelia Cruz, told Fox 5 News in Boston, adding that instead of threatening him with punishments, teachers should have redirected his activities.

“It’s not like he’s designing a machine gun,” the mother said, as the child built another “gun”, which looked more like a stick, as an example for reporters.

The parents also revealed that their son has been punished before for making a gun gesture with his hand.

“We were running around and we were shooting… we were jut pretending,” the boy said.

Despite the media coverage, the school has held its position, noting in a statement to Fox 5:

“While someone might think that making a Lego gun is just an action of a 5-year-old, to other 5-year-olds, that might be a scary experience.”

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