Teachers stage fake gun attack on kids

[Richard]

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070513/ap_o...tUCWsDW7oF

[DreamTime]

This isn't how I heard the story.

[Richard]

Maybe you’re remembering wrong. Here’s another source.
 
School Pulls "Fake" Gun Attack on Sixth Grade Students
Students Cry, Teachers Say, '...Not a Drill.'

By Michelle L Devon (Michy)

Takeaways

It is alleged the mock attack was staged, where someone rattled doors wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

Students hid under their desks for 5 minutes, with the lights out, some crying.

One student alleges that the adults laughed at the students when the mock attack was over.

TENNESSEE - Thursday night, about one month after the Virginia Tech murders, near the anniversary of the Columbine shootings, several teachers from Tennessee believed it would be a good idea, while on a class trip, to stage a mock gun attack to prepare the students. Unfortunately, it is alleged the students were not informed it was a drill, and in fact, were told it was real.

The teachers allegedly informed the students that a gunman was on the loose, while the children hit under desks, crying, scared, and being told that this was real, not a drill. The fake gun attack was said to have lasted approximately five minutes.

In a CNN video interview with one of the students from Scales Elementary School, sixth grade student Dalton Brown, 11 years old, reported that the school's assistant principal came into the dorms, where the students were staying during their field trip, and told all the students to come downstairs. Later, once downstairs, Brown indicated that the Assistant Principal Don Bartch told the students to get under the tables, indicating there was a, "Code Red."

When asked in the interview what a 'code red' indicated, Brown said, "A code red is when there is a person in the area with a gun, a knife or bomb." (Retrieved May 14, 2007, from http://www.CNN.com)

According to one Associated Press story on the Fox News website, the students were told to lie still and quiet under tables, and then it was reported that the lights were turned off and 69 students feared for their lives, believing a gunman was on the loose for at least five minutes. Interviews with the students indicated that many of the students were crying and begging for their lives.

Parents are outraged, indicating that they were not informed of this drill, believe it was not only in bad taste but potentially damaging to the children to put them through this type of a drill, in which the children did not know the events were staged.

Several news stories have quoted the Scales Elementary School Principal Catherine Stephens to have said that, if the staged attack were true, they showed, "... poor judgment... " on the part of the staff, indicating she may not have been aware of the drill. Stephens was reported to have held an impromptu meeting with some concerned parents on Saturday, and a scheduled meeting to discuss this issue with parents will be held tonight.

Shay Naylor, one of the students involved in the staged gunman attack, indicated that there was shock at the fact their teachers would create such a scare for their students. She was quoted in an Associated Press article to have said, ""You'd think a teacher wouldn't do it, but they did." (Retrieved May 14, 2007 from: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,271972,00.html)

Interviews with students on WKRN, a news television station out of Nashville, TN indicated that the students said one of the adults on the field trip even went so far as to put on a hooded sweatshirt and rattle the doors to the dorms where the students stayed to make the fake gunman attack look more realistic.

In a later interview, some other students indicated that the teachers laughed at the students when the fake gunman attack was over, allegedly saying things such as, "We got you. We got you good." News reports are calling the fake gunman attack a prank, but parents don't find it amusing that seven school employees were involved, three teachers, three staff members, and the school's assistant principal.

SOURCES:

Fox News - Associated Press

CNN.com Video

WKRN-TV Video

More resources

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,271972,00.html  

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...sixth.html