United States: Boy held for 'killing pet dinosaur'

By News from Elsewhere... ...media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring

A high-school student in the US state of South Carolina has been arrested and suspended from school over a writing assignment in which he claimed to have killed his neighbour's pet dinosaur, it's been reported.

Alex Stone, 16, says he was told to write something in the style of a Facebook status update for a project at Summerville High School. But when he allegedly wrote: "I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business," worried teachers called the police, local news station WCSC reports. Officials questioned Stone and searched his schoolbag and locker but didn't find any weapons. But police say the boy was difficult during questioning, and he was arrested and charged with disturbing the school, the SF Gate website says. Stone was also suspended for a week.

The boy's mother, Karen Gray, says she thinks the school overreacted. "I could understand if they made him rewrite it," she says in an interview with NY Daily News, adding the school didn't call her to explain what was happening. Meanwhile, her son says he's frustrated and would prefer to be home-schooled from now on. "I regret it because they put it on my record, but I don't see the harm in it," he says.

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