My concern - this kid had separation anxiety, it was the very day his dad was being posted to Iraq - and they separated him from his family right then?
I do agree though, with concerns that the kid was apparently exposed to violent computer games. But again - talk to the parent. Sort it out with them. Especially since the kid was headed for a therapist appointment that day anyway.
I've been there done that with the school not calling me when they should have. They had no excuse when I asked them why they hadn't called in the several hours they had been dealing with "the problem". When I happened to turn up and stumbled over my kid who had been left waiting outside the principal's office for hours, I was presented with a fait accompli. They had searched his bag ad his locker and I watched the acting principal work really hard to alienate me from my kid; she kept hammering at me, "We found this," and "We found that," and besides the main issue (which was fair enough) she produced her objects of concern - a small piece of rope tied in a noose (too small to actually do anything, he had just been tying knots, I'd seen him do it at home) and a very crumpled couple of pages from a mild porn magazine which had been at the bottom of his bad and clearly unregarded for months. This deputy was using the "divide and conquer" method, if she could engage me in getting angry with my son, she could make sure he felt friendless and unsupported. So I refused to be engaged, I told her the noose was clearly non-functional, it wouldn't have strangled a rat. And the porn pages - came from a publication available to under-age kids over the counter. I said the porn was not a school problem, I would deal with it. And I promised to discuss the noose with the therapist. I then asked if difficult child 1 had been properly asked for permission to show the contents of his bag and his locker. He had not. They had told him he had to submit, and under the circumstances - they had no rights whatsoever. He gave permission, but it was not informed consent.
More than schools acting beyond their roles, I really get angry with the mind games they also play on vulnerable kids and parents. I've seen it before - a friend of mine was angry at how her son had been treated by the class teacher. I was involved, so I went with her to the school to have it out with the teacher. Once there, however, the teacher ambushed the conversation, deflected my friend's anger neatly by saying, "You don't know the whole story. Your son has had a history this year of being deceitful, not being a team player, of lying and stealing."
I was surprised to hear it but the teacher sounded convincing. My friend was won over (sadly) and went home to rip her son a new one. Poor kid - the last he had seen of his mother earlier, she had been heading to the school to be his champion. Then she came home breathing hellfire at him!
She calmed down over the next couple of days and looked out her son's mid-year school report - written by that teacher only a few weeks earlier. The report praised the boy for his cooperation with others, his honesty, his hard work and his dedication. So her entire act had been the lowest of the low - she badmouthed her student in order to CYA because she had done the wrong thing by this kid in her initial accusation (the one that had me and the mother down there to complain). Then she compounded by slandering the kid further to his mother.
Teachers are human too. And some people, when they impulsively do the wrong thing, lie about it to cover their tracks. While a lot of teachers are decent people, you will find the ratbags there too, and if you think about it - the ones who are most impulsive and most inconsiderate are also the ones least likely to be bothered by lying to CYA.
In this case - genuine concern for the kid requires some attention paid to the problem. But the school has to really be sure - are they acting out of genuine concern for the child? Or for themselves in terms of potential legal action? Because the first might justify action, but not the second.
marg