Two 12-year-old sixth-grade boys were arrested in Gadsden, Alabama on Thursday for a notebook that allegedly listed their school staff and fellow students in a manner similar to the Death Note anime series. According to Etowah County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Lanny Handy, the supervisor for school resource officers, the lists were in a notebook that was discovered by school staffers on Wednesday afternoon. Handy said the students were inspired by the Death Note series on the Adult Swim network, but he also said there was no indication that the student were serious about planning an attack.

Etowah County Superintendent of Education Mike Bailey issued a news release that said that the students were suspended from the county's schools, pending a juvenile court hearing. The students, their parents, and school officials had met with Handy and a junior probation officer.

There were at least two previous incidents in the United States where school officials linked Death Note directly to students being disciplined. One high school senior in Richmond, Virginia was suspended in December over a list of his classmates' names that the school principal linked to Death Note. A middle school student in Hartsville, South Carolina was "removed" from school over a "Death Note" notebook in March. In neither case were there any arrests reported. In the fictional Death Note supernatural suspense story, a teenager finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names.