In Hudson, Ohio, a teacher asked each student in her third-grade class at McDowell Elementary to write fortune-cookie fortunes, to be later drawn from randomly. Karl Bauman, a 9-year-old Tae Kwan Do purple belt and martial arts enthusiast, submitted what he thought was a dignified fortune: "You will die with honor." When a classmate drew the fortune from the pile, she burst into tears. Bauman was suspended for "writing a note threatening in nature."

Other Columbine-inspired overreactions include a Pennsylvania 14-year-old who was strip-searched and suspended for two weeks after she told her classmates she could understand how the Columbine shooters felt. In Virginia, a 9-year-old boy was suspended for waving his drawing of a gun in class, and a high school student was suspended for having blue hair. South Carolina high school students were questioned by police who wanted to know if a chemistry textbook was for making bombs.

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