A student at prestigious Stuyvesant High School spiked his football teammates’ Gatorade with copper sulfate that he stole from a school chemistry lab, and other teammates kept quiet about the prank, New York Magazine is reporting.
Copper sulfate is commonly used in chemistry classes to demonstrate exothermic reactions, but it is also used as a fungicide and herbicide.
After drinking the spiked Gatorade, two members of the junior varsity Peglegs became ill, with one vomiting blood. Both students were back in school the next day, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. New York Magazine reports that the student who poisoned the Gatorade was arrested on a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge and also suspended for two weeks.
The Stuyvesant story is reminiscent of a prank pulled by graduating seniors at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies last June — except those students had laced the baked treats they gave teachers and school personnel with laxatives, not toxins. Those students were suspended, barred from graduation, and charged with assault. Earlier this fall, an 8th grader at a citywide gifted school in East Harlem spiked a teacher’s drink with calcium hydroxide; he was charged with reckless endangerment.
Are kids these days more poison-happy than they used to be? Feinberg says no. “We have a million kids in this system,” she said. “When they do something wrong, they’ll be disciplined.”