Child Faces No Charges For Violent Book
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Parents at Tidwell Middle School in Fort Worth are planning additional protests after learning that a student who wrote about killing classmates will not face any charges. They might even go to Austin to lodge their concerns.
Several parents and students already protested at the school last month after an eighth-grade boy wrote a graphic book online that detailed some gruesome killings, and even named specific classmates. They considered the boy's work to be a violent threat, and wanted the writer to be removed from school.
However, the boy was allowed to return to class, leaving many other students and their parents to live in fear.
Those parents were dealt another blow on Wednesday, when prosecutors stated that the case was complete because no crime was committed. The young writer will not face any charges.
But students continue to be afraid, and parents have encouraged them to leave class if they do not feel safe. "There's so much stress and so much focus on this one child and this instance that it's pointless to send them to school," explained mother Shawteel Blodgett. "They're fearful of it and there's no protection."
"When this first became knowledge to our district, we took immediate and prompt action working closely hand in hand with law enforcement," Northwest Independent School District superintendent Karen Rue said last month. "All actions we've taken since that time have been to secure a safe learning environment."
"The environment just feels so much more different, and it feels like, at any moment, something bad will happen," said seventh-grade student Jenae Zieman during last month's protests. "It feels just horrible knowing that there's a kid like that who actually wants to hurt people, and it's just scary."
Parents think that the Tarrant County District Attorney's office got this one wrong, and are set to protest again, maybe even bringing their complaints to state officials. They want to see the book's writer removed from school. But there has not been a date or time set for this latest round of protesting.
Meanwhile, the father of the young writer said that this son has no intentions of harming any students. The child writes often, he said, and has been encouraged to continue expressing his creativity.