New Jersey teacher calls police on third grader over a comment about brownies

A New Jersey teacher called the police when one student in her third grade class made a comment another child said was racist. "He said they were talking about brownies," which the class was eating for an end-of-the-year party, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos. "Who exactly did he offend?"

Dos Santos reports her son was "traumatized" by his interaction with the police, and she hopes to send him to a different school in the fall. "He was intimidated, obviously," she said. "There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying, 'Tell me what you said.' He didn't have anybody on his side."

Police are called to the elementary school in question as often as five times per day, as teachers prefer to dial the cops rather than dealing with routine misbehavior themselves. Following the brownies incident, the local police department reiterated its guidelines for the school as to appropriate circumstances for bringing officers to discipline elementary school hijinks.

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