9-year-old boy suspended for telling classmate he could make him disappear with magic ring

A 9-year-old boy was suspended from his school in Kermit, Texas, on Friday for allegedly making a terroristic threat. Kermit Elementary School officials called it a threat when Aiden Steward, in a playful act of make-believe, told a classmate he could make him disappear with a magic ring he had taken to school. “It sounded unbelievable,” the boy’s father, Jason Steward, says. He insists his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”



The Steward family had been to see “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” days earlier, inspiring Aiden’s imagination and leading him to proclaim that he had in his possession the one ring to rule them all. “Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” Steward said. Aiden claimed on Thursday he could put a ring on his friend's head and make him invisible like Bilbo Baggins, who stole Gollum’s "precious" in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series “The Lord of the Rings.” “I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” Steward says.

"If he did, I'm sure he'd bring him right back." Steward says the principal said threats to another child’s safety would not be tolerated – whether magical or not. Principal Roxanne Greer declined to comment on the matter. “All student stuff is confidential,” Greer said. Steward said he didn’t understand why Aiden was removed from school and why the district didn’t just send a letter home. He said he requested that the school send him “something in writing” saying that the school suspended Aiden and why they suspended him. Steward was told the school would put the letter in the mail.



The Steward family moved to the Kermit Independent School District only six months ago, but it’s been nothing but headaches for Aiden. He’s already been suspended three times this school year. Two of the disciplinary actions were in-school suspensions for referring to a classmate as black and for taking his favourite book to school: "The Big Book of Knowledge." “He loves that book. They were studying the solar system and he took it to school. He thought his teacher would be impressed,” Steward said. But the teacher learned the popular children’s encyclopedia had a section on pregnancy, depicting a pregnant woman in an illustration, he explained.