Ohio middle schooler suspended after liking gun photo on Instagram

WCMH Staff - TRENTON, Ohio (WCMH) — A middle school student landed in hot water at school after liking a post on social media.

Seventh grader Zachary Bowlin received a 10-day suspension from Edgewood Middle School after he liked a photo of an airsoft gun on Instagram. The caption of the photo simply said, "Ready."

"I don't think I did anything wrong," Zachary said. "[The] next morning, they called me down and, like, patted me down and checked me for weapons. Then, they told me I was getting expelled or suspended or whatever."

The note the school sent home to Zachary's parents said that the official cause of his suspension was "liking a post on social media that indicated potential school violence."

"I was livid," said Zachary's father Martin Bowlin. "He never shared, he never commented, never made a threatening post … [he] just liked it."

In a statement released to WXIX, the superintendent of Edgewood City Schools said:

I assure you that any social media threat will be taken serious, including those who ‘like' the post when it potentially endangers the health and safety of students or adversely affects the educational process."

School administrators agreed to lift the suspension after speaking with Zachary's parents.