An autistic freshman high school student was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car AND suspended for 10 days …. just for running around the football field in a banana suit during halftime during a football game. (It’s not like he disrupted the actual game. Who actually pays attention to halftime at high school football games anyway?)
Read the full story below:
14-year-old Brian Thompson says he never thought he would be handcuffed and placed in a police car for running down the sidelines during halftime at a football game.
He and his mother, Tavia Thompson, say they are even more puzzled that officials at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, Va., suspended him for 10 days, apparently for being disruptive.
Video of last Friday night’s game is now on YouTube, and somebody created a Facebook page, which is rapidly filling up with friends who support the “Banana Man.”
Thompson says it was a harmless prank. He was trying to be funny and entertaining. His mother says the school’s principal thought he was creating mayhem.
Some students at the school wore t-shirts Monday that said “Free The Banana Man.” They say the shirts were confiscated and students wearing them were ordered to attend school on Saturday as punishment.
Thompson is autistic. His mother says she thinks her son’s autism, that results in impulsiveness, is the real reason for the suspension.
A spokeswoman for Stafford County schools says they don’t comment on individual student’s actions or discipline arising from those actions. She says discipline recommendations are not made in isolation and that there is an appeals process.
This is all kinds of ridiculous! Suspended for 10 days (and let’s not forget they actually arrested him and put him in a police car too) … all because of a banana costume??? We can see maybe a little afternoon detention or something … but suspension? For 10 days? Over a banana costume? A frikkin’ BANANA COSTUME, people.
WOW.
