Boy Says He Was Punished For Trying To 'Do The Right Thing'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A student in the North Kansas City School District says he is being punished for what he thought was a good deed.

Tuesday morning, a 10-year-old boy waiting for the bus to Oakwood Manor Elementary School, dug up what he thought was a gun in the ground.

"It came out real fast. I got a good look at it. It really was a gun. Thank God it was a toy gun," Frasier McCart told KMBC.

McCart wouldn't find out it was a toy until later. When he first found it, he wanted to make sure nobody got hurt.

Just before the bus arrived at the corner, McCart put the gun in his backpack. He said he had a plan.

"I was thinking, 'I'll give it to the principal, she'll know what to do,'" McCart said.

"It did look like a real gun," Principal Marla Wasserman said.

She said the boy had good intentions, but while making his way through the hallway to her office, he told another student what he had in his backpack.

Wasserman said McCart shouldn't have done that. School officials said that McCart's action could have earned him an extended out-of-school suspension, but he will remain in school for the corrective action.

"I'm sitting here wondering, 'Why? What'd I do?' I did the right thing," McCart said.

McCart's mother is also disappointed.

"It's hard to find somebody that can be honest and do the right thing," said Tracy Johnson. "And to punish him for doing the right thing, that just doesn't paint a pretty picture."

© Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc.

Posted by: evilsaltine || Last Modified: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005