Mother of Suspended Student says Gun Threat Accusations are False

7/3/2012 (Updated 11:26:28 PM)

The accusations were  made in late May against two students at Jennie F. Snap Middle School in Endicott.

Dana Echauri, the mother of one of the boys says a week before, her son and the other boy who is accused were taking part in the popular  on-line game Call of Duty.  A chat-room type discussion included talk of various types of guns--  she says the  two other boys who would later make the accusations were part of the discussion.  At no time, she says, did her son ever talk about bringing guns to school, or shooting students.

A week later, in the schoolyard, she says, the students who would become the accusers, bullied her son:
   
Echauri said, "Apparantly, five to ten minutes beforehand, my son was attacked on the playground with a game called 'Smear the Queer' and there were two other witnesses to the incident, and when my son told them, they (school officials) brushed it off as having nothing to do with the matter at hand...but so far, I've seen no action to investigate the incident that happened"

Echauri  thinks that the bullies  were afraid on getting in trouble themselves, so they made up the story about her son making threats, to take the attention away from their own misbehaivor.

Atty. Ron Benjamin says in making the decision to suspend, the school superintendent ignored proper proceedures. 

He told Fox 40 News, "We don't know what they're saying was said, we don't know what the factual finding was to take two boys who were not trouble-makers and take them out of school for a year.  That is about as gross a denial of due process as you're going to get."
 
Benjamin is requesting a hearing before the school board--and wants the suspensions lifted.

He added, "When you make such a finding, it will follow that student for the rest of their academic career, and I'm talking right into college.  No college is going to readily accept a student that has exhibited that kind of behavior."
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