OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Five middle school students have been charged with making threats — including death threats — against teachers in separate incidents.
Prosecutor Paul Morrison said filing charges against the students, who attend Trailridge Middle School in Lenexa, a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., was appropriate.
"We're trying to make a statement," he said. "Teachers have a right to feel safe in their classrooms."
Authorities did not release the names of those charged Friday because of their ages.
Two 13-year-old girls were each charged with one felony count of criminal threat. They allegedly threatened to kill a teacher over a grade in a Jan. 17 posting on an online journal site.
Three 14-year-old boys were charged in two separate incidents in January in which a liquid was placed in a teacher's coffee pot.
One of the boys faces one felony count of criminal threat and misdemeanors. The felony charge accuses him of posting Internet messages threatening a teacher's life.
"Where we don't think it (the substance) was life-threatening, it did make the teacher sick," Morrison said.