Zero Tolerance for doodling

I'm sure we've all done it. You're sitting in class, and you begin absentmindedly doodling on your desk during a particularly dry lecture or boring class period. Imagine if you had simply drawn your name or a phrase on a desk in marker, and suddenly you were arrested and taken down to the nearest police station. Sure, it's defacing school property...but is it really handcuff-worthy?

Alexa Gonzalez, a seventh-grader in New York, simply scrawled "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" on her desk in school, and was handcuffed in front of friends and teachers and escorted to the police station.

When I first read this article, I thought it was a joke. There's no way that I could ever imagine something like this happening at any middle school or Aragon. What's the legal criteria for this? Apparently, this is yet another example of the "zero tolerance" policy taken a few steps too far in schools. And it isn't the first time, the article cites several other instances where the police were called in situations that could have easily been handled by the teacher or the school's administration.

The "zero tolerance" policy is basically when automatic punishment is imposed when a rule is broken. It's intention is to stop unwanted behavior right away, and it leaves no room for exceptions.

I understand this policy in terms of students drinking, fighting, using drugs, or harassing one another. But isn't this way too far? I mean, calling the police because a seventh grader is doodling on desks? Is this just teachers and admins being lazy and not wanting to deal with discipline? She didn't even use profanity or hate language. Also, isn't it a complete waste of time to make police officers involved? Shouldn't they be directing their money and time to more important things that are bigger threats to our security? What are your thoughts?