Three twelve-year-old students have been arrested and charged with a felony after pulling a prank on their teacher, by pouring hot pepper into her beverage. On the surface, this may seem like a too-common overreach of “zero tolerance” policy, but in this case it’s more complicated than that.
See, these girls had been busted previously for pulling some mean pranks on other students. This was less of a poorly-thought-out joke and more of a malicious retaliation. The severity of the charges may be overkill, but maybe this is one of those cases where the offenders need to learn a hard lesson in spite of their age.
