Two 12-year-old girls contaminate their teacher’s coffee cup
Well, actually, it is home. A frightening story by Jonathan Martin, Seattle Times staff reporter:
As assaults go, strawberry lip gloss is not an obvious weapon of choice. Unless, perhaps, the suspects are sixth-grade girls.
Two 12-year-olds from Bainbridge Island are facing possible assault charges for slathering strawberry-scented lip balm on a water bottle and coffee cup Thursday to prompt an allergic reaction in their teacher, who has a severe allergy to strawberries.
The motive? A progress report was due, and one of the girls did not have a parent’s signature.
"They thought if they could make the teacher sick, then the progress report would not be an issue," said Mark Duncan, deputy chief of the Bainbridge police. "This is 12-year-old thinking."
The girls, students of Sakai Intermediate School, told police they considered using real strawberries, but did not want to kill their teacher, just distract her from the missing progress report. So they resorted to lip gloss.
After sipping from the tainted coffee mug, the teacher, Kasey Jeffers, 58, had a mild reaction — watery eyes and shortness of breath — in front of her class, said Pam Keyes, a Bainbridge schools spokeswoman. Jeffers took medicine and went home early, according to police.