The young girl thought it was sugar.
A teacher at a southwest Philadelphia kindergarten became alarmed Wednesday when she saw a six-year-old girl in her class biting down a small plastic bag. Turns out the bag contained crack cocaine.
"She put the actual bag in her mouth and was chewing it," Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker told local TV station WPVI. "Fortunately, she didn't break the actual seal."
Suspecting it was drugs, the educator took it from the student and called the police and the local department of human services.
According to another TV station, WCAU, the girl said she got the drugs from another student’s school bag. Walker told the station that police do not believe the drugs came from the home of the 6-year-old student.
In a statement, the school, Mastery Charter Hardy Williams Elementary, said both children were taken to the nurse's office "where it was determined there was no evidence either of the students had ingested the substance."
Police said the nurse cleared the children and a school resource officer sent them home. Meanwhile, detectives began to investigate.
"They are packaged to be individual like that,” Walker told WPVI, “but usually they are in a larger grouping, so we don't know if in fact there were other glassine bags out there in the school at this time."
The school said the backpacks of all students were checked and parents were notified.
Here is the school’s full statement:
Around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16, a staff member at Mastery Charter Schools Hardy Williams Elementary saw a kindergarten student trying to open a plastic bag with a white powder inside. Upon further inspection, the staff member determined the substance could possibly be drugs, confiscated the bag and immediately took the student to the nurse's office. As a standard policy in these cases, the school contacted the police and DHS to investigate.
The child indicated she got the "candy" out of a classmate's book bag. That child denied having any "candy," but was also taken to the nurse's office, where it was determined there was no evidence either of the students had ingested the substance.
As a precaution, we checked the belongings of all 25 students in the class. Nothing else was found.
We reached out to the families of both students involved and notified all parents about the incident this afternoon.