Parents Say Students Threatened to Kill Their Children

Two South Jersey mothers say school district officials didn’t do enough to keep their children safe after they were threatened by other students.

Aster Diaz says another student told her 7-year-old son he was going to shoot him in the head.

“A second grade student isn’t supposed to say, ‘I’m going to shoot you in the head with a gun,’” Diaz said.

Both Diaz’ son and the boy who allegedly threatened him attend Pemberton Elementary School. Diaz took her son out of the school, claiming he is traumatized and terrified after the threat.

“I was frozen,” said her son, who we are not identifying. “I was afraid it was going to happen.”

Winnie Allen, a mother of a 13-year-old boy who attends Pemberton Township Middle School, also pulled her son out of school after she says a similar threat was made towards him. According to Allen, a classmate threatened to kill her son.

“He was threatened to be shot,” Allen said.

Local

Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.

Deadly crash closes Black Horse Pike in Atlantic County

Pa. House advances measure to prohibit ‘ghost guns'

Allen says another student told the classmate he could be reported for making the threat.

“That’s when he told the other student that he would shoot him too,” Allen said.

Both parents called for the school district to reassign the students who made the threats to different schools. The district decided not to do that however. NBC10 spoke to Pemberton Township School District Superintendent Michael Gorman to find out why.

“Standard procedure when we have a threat is we do a threat assessment to see how viable the threat may or not be,” Gorman said.

According to Gorman, district officials ultimately determined that the threats were not viable. The explanation doesn’t sit well with Diaz however.

“If that’s not a viable threat, please tell me what it is,” Diaz said.

Gorman says several factors go into determining this. 

“That varies by age, by the words that were stated and by the relationship we know the students have,” Gorman said.

Both students who allegedly made the threats remain at their schools. Allen and Diaz say they don’t understand why school officials won’t separate them from their children.

“I just don’t want my son to be in the same place with the person who threatened his life,” Diaz said.

Diaz says she plans to appeal the district’s decision to the school board.
 

Contact Us