The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -  When 8-year-old Andrew Berry discovered he had accidentally brought his unloaded pellet gun to Newton County Theme School at Ficquett on Monday, he immediately notified his teacher. He “did the right thing” by turning in the weapon, discreetly, said his mother, Kristy Berry. “The principal told me [Andrew] handled it the right way,” she said. “So did the police.” But police also told her son that he was guilty of a felony, she said. Soon after he told his teacher, Andrew found himself being interviewed by Covington police officers, Berry said. The third-grader was also suspended for no less than 10 days and faces a court date for what everyone agrees was an innocent mistake.“He has a police file now,” said Berry, a mother of five whose husband serves as a combat flight medic in Afghanistan. Newton schools spokeswoman Sherri Viniard said Andrew’s principal “did exactly what [he] was supposed to do.” Notifying law enforcement officers after the discovery of a weapon by a student is required under school policy, she said. “I was fit to be tied,” said Kristy Berry’s father, Stevie Holt, who arrived at his grandson’s school to find that Andrew had already been interrogated. “I understand protocol. I believe in zero-tolerance laws, or at least I did.” Meanwhile, Kristy Berry said she wants her son’s record scrubbed clean.“All we’re asking for is a little common sense,” she said.

This is the perfect example of why zero tolerance policies can’t work on any level in a normally functioning society. I mean nobody with a brain who thinks this kid should have a police record right? Like maybe you could argue the detention stands but the police record? Flat idiotic. Yet the police, the principal, everybody is just sitting there with a thumbs up their ass acting like they wish they could do something but policy is policy. Well what’s the point of even having a brain then? Why not just replace teachers with robots? Because I don’t care what the rule it. I don’t care what the policy is. If you don’t use common sense when making decisions than you are no better than Stalin, Hitler and every other dictator who has defended unjust laws by saying a rule is a rule. Gross.