A Philadelphia fifth grader was admonished by school officials and called “murderer” by classmates for bringing a piece of paper that looked like a gun to school. Melody Valentin was searched by a school official in front of Newlin Fell Elementary School classmates last week, she told Fox 29 in Philadelphia. “He yelled at me and said I shouldn’t have brought the gun to school and I kept telling him it was a paper gun but he wouldn’t listen,” Melody said. Mom Dianna Kelly pulled Melody out of the school, and is unsure whether she will send her back. “Why did he threaten my daughter,” Kelly told Fox 29. “Why did you stand over my daughter and tell her that you should call the cops on her? You can be arrested. Why were you trying to scare her?”
Melody said she was mercilessly harassed by classmates. “They would call me a murderer,” Melody told Fox 29. The piece of paper in question was crafted by Melody’s grandfather the day before the incident, but was not very elaborate. It was just a piece of folded paper, Dianna Kelly said. Melody didn’t realize the piece of paper was still on her person when she took it out of her pocket. A classmate saw the “gun” and reported it to the school official. “I’m waking up at 3 o’clock in the morning, and my daughter is in the bathroom, crying,” Dianna Kelly said. “She said ‘I’m having nightmares. I’m having dreams that he’s chasing me down the street.'”! Fox 29 could not reach school administrators for comment.
