Children Lied About My Child Threatening To Bring A Weapon To School, False Police Report

Hi -- this past week, my daughter had an argument with another student at recess about using the classroom playground ball. My daughter brought it out of the classroom, another student took it from her, they argued about it in the school yard. They went to a teacher and the teacher was dismissive -- "just stop arguing and go play."

When they lined up to go back into class, my daughter said to a friend "I want to kill [child x]." Child X, and three other little girls, have consistently/systematically bullied my daughter for the past year. There have been numerous times one of them will get my daughter upset, and then the other three will surround her -- "why are you upset? Is it because we don't like you? Is it because you have no friends?" That kind of thing. There have been times the four of them have gone to a teacher with a false but coordinated narrative -- "We saw he sneak into the boys room and she said she wrote on the walls." When no graffiti was found the fourth of them pulled "Oh, we must have remembered wrong" and there were no consequences.

So, all of that tied into my daughter snapping and saying what she said. It was wrong, she shouldn't have said it. We're friendly with Child X's Mom, we discussed it an that was it.

An hour later I got a text from another child's Mom -- "Your daughter threatened to bring a knife to school tomorrow and stab my daughter [child y] to death." This was the first time I had heard child Y's name but she is one of the ones that has bullied my daughter, has lied in the past to try and get her in deep trouble. I tried calling the Mom, she rejected my call. I texted her "Please give me a call when you can. I'm confused, I was told by the school and other parents my daughter said 'I want to kill [child x]' but that was it. Both child x and my daughter have said no one else was invovled, I'm not sure where the connection here is." The Mom didn't respond.

THe next day we had a meeting with the principal and, during that meeting, we were told child y's Mom filed a police report claiming my daughter "threatened to murder several kids in her class." A further detail in the report claims my daughter had brought a plastic fork out to the school yard and was threatening the other students with it to get the ball back. The report claims a teacher had to intervene, physically taking the fork from my daughter and telling her to 'stop threatening' the other students. We've spoken to all the teachers, this scenario didn't happen.

When child y's Mom went to file the report, she called child x's Mom and demanded she also sign the report. Child x's Mom said she wouldn't because she thought the approach was wrong. Child y's Mom began to swear and scream at child x's Mom because she wouldn't sign the report. Further, child y's Mom and a fourth Mom, a mom of one of the other children that normally bullies my daughter, have been approaching other parents in the class and telling them about how "dangerous" my daughter is. "She threatened to bring a knife to school and to stab everyone with it. The school is doing ***nothing*** so we have to."

My daughter readily admitted she said "I want to kill child x." Granted, that is language she shouldn't be using but we've all said "I could kill them!" out of frustration without any intent. THis is that scenario but she was suspended for a day over it, lesson learned. My daughter continues to refute the threat of bringing a knife to school, she is adamant she never said it or anything like it. She insists she never had a plastic fork or knife and never threatened anyone with anything.

All of the parents of the four bullies believe the threat of a knife is real because "why would they lie about it?!?" Even though it's the substantive part of the police report and it's been proven false, I'm sure just trying to talk with them won't do anything. At this point, I'm considering retaining counsel to determine if there's a defamation suit here. So much of this is unproveable, it's their word against ours, but the teacher's conflicting statement sheds major doubt on the situation. If the one day suspension had ended it, I would just let it all go, but the Moms are still approaching other parents over it, they're still pushing for my daughter to be expelled, etc. I'm not looking for any damages, I really just want to force these parents to stop spreading false allegations and I think this is the only way to do it. The school is going through a major enrollment crunch so they're not going to ruffle any feathers, they're going to play it safe.

I'm in Massachusetts, if that makes any difference.

Thanks

Edit: after the suspension, at the schools request, we reached out to our pedatrician and met with a social worker. After speaking with our daughter for a few hours over a couple days, the report concluded that the driving force behind the entire event was constant, systemic bullying.