“one high school student who was “known as a class clown” made “an offhand joke about committing an act of violence” last school year, according to ProPublica‘s report. “Rumors spread among the students about his comment, warping it in the process. He was called to the principal’s office, where a waiting police officer asked whether he had a gun in his backpack. He showed them that he didn’t and insisted that he had just been making a joke….School officials initiated a threat assessment and gathered statements from the students who heard the joke, which were then used as evidence against him. He was expelled for a year.””