ERIE, PA Pupil gets suspended for grenade

The 11-year-old is accused of threatening to blow up a school bus.
ERIE, Pa. (AP) -- An 11-year-old northwestern Pennsylvania boy was suspended after school officials say he brandished a fake grenade and threatened to blow up his school bus.
The boy, a sixth-grader at Lawrence Park Elementary School near Erie, showed the inactive grenade to classmates on his bus on Wednesday and said he would pull the pin and blow up the bus, said Charles Lewis, chief of the Lawrence Park police.
Suspension
School officials said the boy has been suspended while they consider alternative education plans for him. He also faces juvenile charges of bringing a weapon onto school property, disorderly conduct and terroristic threats.
"Holding it in his hand, you have no idea what it is. That's the dangerous part of this whole thing," said Joseph Buzanowski, superintendent of the Iroquois School District. "You have to take every precaution you can to ensure the safety of students."
The boy's father, who asked not to be identified, told the Erie Times-News that his son is mentally disabled and acted out because he didn't want to be alone at school anymore. The boy is taught in a classroom by himself because of problems at another school, his father said.
"He knew he had to go back to class all by himself with no other students," his father said. "He indicated he felt like a prisoner."