Experts dubious of Ga. 3rd-grader plot

Experts dubious of Ga. 3rd-grader plot

By RUSS BYNUM and MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press Writers 33 minutes ago

Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it is unlikely that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.

Police say the plot at Center Elementary School began because the children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently angry after the teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair.

Students brought a crystal paperweight, a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs and other items as part of last week's plot, police said Tuesday. They said nine students were involved, but prosecutors are seeking juvenile charges against only three of them.

Experts said children that age are certainly imaginative and capable of creating elaborate games. But Dr. Louis Kraus, a child psychiatry expert at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said he doubts they would have actually attacked.

"The reality is it is highly unlikely they would have been successful at this," Kraus said. "Even if it had begun, it's unclear whether they actually would have followed through with it."

Most premeditated acts of student violence in schools usually don't occur until high school, Kraus said. Younger children have been known to bring knives or other weapons to school, experts said, but often it's more a matter of showing off or acting tough than part of a deliberate assault attempt.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_on_re_us/children_s_plot_22

I know kids.

Kids of that age do not generally make complex plots to kill their teachers unless there is some weird shit going on.

Or have you got some kind of bitchy comment to make about that too?

I know kids too.

Obviously I disagree.

I am so sick of this fucking black and white, us and them, binary thinking.

Do you think it just MIGHT be complex? Maybe? Perhaps?

Kids do stupid things. Often for no logical reason.

our public schools are. We need more control by government! Send your kids to private schools. Constant chaos.

WANTED to do. I suspect almost any adult would be able to thwart an attack by an 8 YO. That's not the point. Something has already taught them the solution to anger problems is a violent attack.

and the proper firepower...

hell, these 3rd-graders could have pulled it off without any complications...

of course, they would have had to have had the firepower...

and we know NO children have access to guns in America....

these kids were even contemplating this is surreal to me. Even if a teacher was 'mean', I can't even imagine.

especially with other bratty kids I hung around with. None of us ever DID any of that stuff.

This hysteria is coming awfully close to convicting people--LITTLE KIDS--of thought crime.

It's sick.

I wonder what some adults would have thought if they could have heard us.

I hope they would have understood that we would have had no idea how to implement our grandiose schemes. Actually doing anything beyond talk was beyond our eight or nine-year-old capabilities.

I think handcuffs, a steak knife, and duct tape take this beyond mere thought. These kids have issues, to put it mildly.

We never had such kids in my school. It was small, public, and rural. You were expelled for smoking in the restroom. No one skipped school a lot.

somewhat grandiose plots. Then we came up with a better plot and lost interest in those items.

I take it you didn't go to Catholic school at Our Lady of Perpetual Punishment. We were as motivated as kids that age get.

tell us about the cruel Nuns. We would run past the school. Funny eh? Like a Nun would come out and pull our hair or rap us on the knuckles.

Nope I was a public school kid all the way through university.

It was unloaded. Another kid had the bullets and a third kid had a list of names of who they were going to shoot after they shot the teacher.

Yes, I do believe they would have done it if they could.

would 3rd graders understand the concept ammunition caliber...:shrug: