Five New Jersey fifth-graders were arrested Wednesday after their teachers discovered their plot to “bomb” a high school event.
North Jersey.com reported that police got a call from school officials around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday saying they had found written plans by the grade schoolers to bring an explosive device to a Clifton, New Jersey high school during a scheduled field trip.
The Clifton Elementary School #11 students, four girls and one boy aged 10 -11, were suspended from school and released to their parents after speaking with police.
Police investigators later found a “device,” but said the vinegar and cinnamon-filled item was “benign” and not an explosive.
Still, Clifton Police spokesman Robert Bracken insisted “it wasn’t a prank” and while the children didn’t have the right equipment, “the intent was there.”
The event the students were slated to attend was canceled after the incident.
When I was a kid, we called this “playing.”
The “intent” was there? The undeveloped brains of small children “intend” intensely, including ways to trap Santa Claus. Want to arrest them for attempted kidnapping?
If they had used baking soda instead of cinnamon, this could have been a tragedy.
We subject tiny minds to active shooter drills and then we wonder how they get these ideas…
But, freedom or something.
Give a man a police badge and he’ll see crime everywhere.