WATCH: Students claim homecoming photo got them suspended

MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — Two high school students tell a Boston television station they are facing expulsion because of a homecoming photo they posted to Facebook.

Tito Velez, 16, and his girlfriend, Jamie Pereira, are shown holding airsoft guns in a homecoming photo they posted on Facebook last Friday, according to WCVB.

Airsoft guns are replicas, which can fire plastic pellets, and are intended to be non-lethal.

“This isn’t dangerous .. you can’t kill someone with it,” Velez told WCVB.  “We didn’t shoot anyone. We were pointing them at the floor. Everything was on safe, no batteries, they never left the house. We never took them to school. That’d be stupid.”

But after captioning the photo with the name of their high school students began talking about that photo during class and that school officials told WCVB was a ‘disruption.’

“These students know what is … provocative,” Superintendent Richard Gross told WCVB. “And to tie that to one of our school events kind of puts it over the top which brings us into it.”

WCVB reported that the students were suspended for up to 10 days. The superintendent said there will be a hearing about when or if they will be allowed to return.