Tool from teen's part time job gets him suspended from high school

[link to www.kare11.com]

Is it a weapon, or is it a tool?

Blaine High School senior Tony Richard has been suspended for two weeks, and could be expelled for the entire year, after security officers found a box cutter in the teenager's car.

"It's not fun, I'll tell you that," Richard said Tuesday. "All my friends are in school.. Say oh yeah it's vacation, but there's nothing to do at home all day and I still got to do all my school work and stuff. I'd rather be in school."

Richard's mother Michelle is angry, saying the district is over-reacting to an innocent tool left in her son's car.

"The punishment isn't fitting the crime for what he's done," she said.

Security guards spotted the box cutter September 5, while checking for parking passes in the school parking lot.

It was lying in the cup holder of Richard's car.

School officials consider the box cutter a weapon, and possessing one on school grounds violates the district's no weapons policy.

But the box cutter is also a tool, used in many lines of work.

In the case of Tony Richard, he uses it for a part time job at the local Cub Foods store -- cutting boxes.

"It was just sitting there after work, because I go to work right after I go to school," Richard said.

For now, he's suspended, and the school board will consider expelling him for the entire school year at its upcoming meeting on Monday.

District spokesperson Sarah Schwartz told KARE 11 school officials can't comment on individual cases, but referred to the district's policy on weapons. It flatly says any student who violates the policy will be immediately suspended and the expulsion process launched. Anoka-Hennepin's policy on weapons, from the district handbook, states: Possession, use, and/or transmission of a weapon(s) or any object that can reasonably be considered a weapon(s): weapon means a knife; firearm or an item which looks like a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, in working or nonworking condition; destructive explosives, any incendiary device or look alike and/or the threatened intent or intent to cause an explosion; or any other device or instrument which is utilized in such a manner so as to threaten, intimidate or produce bodily harm or the fear of such. a. A student who commits a weapons infraction will be immediately suspended from school b. The expulsion process will be immediately initiated.