TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- Controversy is brewing in Titusville over the suspension of a high school student. It all started when a female student made a hand gesture.

The district believes the student was threatening a school employee, but there were no verbal threats and the teenager says she was just playing around with her friends when she clasped her hands together and pretended to fire a gun. It was enough to send her home for four days.

"I was like, 'Boom!' Like that," Adeena Williams told Eyewitness News, showing how she clasped her hands together to form a gun shape.

It was four seconds in the cafeteria that ended up getting Williams tossed out of school for four days. The Titusville High School junior said she was playing around during a lunch break last week, dramatizing how she thought police would react to a school fight, when she found herself in more trouble than she ever imagined.

"The people that do bring things to school that they don't know about, that's who they need to worry about, not being going, 'Boom!' with my hands," she said.

While Williams insists she was pointing at her friends, a school cafeteria worker believed she was pointing at her and the incident occurred just a few hours after the two argued over whether she could have a free cup of ice.

"She just said I was at her like this, like I was going to shoot her. I wasn't raised that way," Williams told Eyewitness News.

School staff is forbidden from discussing student's disciplinary action, but the district spokesperson said a verbal threat doesn't have to be made to warrant taking some action.

"We have no cookbook approach to discipline. We take each case individually," said Wes Sumner, Brevard Public Schools.

Williams' family said even if she did gesture in the direction of the cafeteria worker, a four-day suspension was too much.

"I think it was overreaction on the cafeteria worker and over reaction on the punishment," said Clemon Randolph, Williams' Uncle.

The school district said there is a difference between bringing a weapon onto campus and making a gesture with your hands. A weapon could mean an automatic expulsion, while the punishment for a hand gesture depends on the situation.

Williams' will finish her suspension Wednesday and she's expected to return to school on Thursday.