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Police handcuff Georgia kindergartner for tantrum
"Tantrum" seems like an understatement, but I'm not sure how I feel about the cuffs.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/04/17/national/a095340D48.DTL
(04-17) 09:53 PDT Milledgeville, Ga. (AP) --
Police in Georgia handcuffed a kindergartner with her arms behind her back after the girl threw a tantrum and the police chief defended the action as a safety measure.
The girl's family demanded Tuesday that their central Georgia city change policy so that other children aren't treated the same way. They say the child was shaken up by the ordeal.
While it's unusual to see a young child handcuffed in school, it's not unheard of. School officials around the nation have wrestled with the issue of when it's appropriate to call police on a student.
Salecia Johnson, 6, was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing books and toys in an outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary School in Milledgeville, according to a police report.
Police said a small shelf thrown by the child struck the principal in the leg during the fracas. The child also jumped on a paper shredder and tried to break a glass frame, the police report states.
The school called police. When an officer tried to calm the child in the principal's office, she resisted, police say. She "was restrained by placing her hands behind her back and handcuffed," a police report states.
A juvenile complaint was filed, accusing the girl of simple battery and damage to property.
The police department's policy is to handcuff people when they are taken to the police station, regardless of their age, interim Police Chief Dray Swicord said.
"The reason we handcuff detainees is for the safety of themselves as well as the officer," he said Tuesday.
The girl's aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child's mother to pick her up from the police station. She said Salecia had been in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs.
"She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists," Ruff said. "She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up."
The police chief said the girl was taken to the police department's squad room, not a holding cell, and officers there tried to calm her and gave her a Coke.
Officials at Creekside Elementary did not immediately return calls Tuesday.
The girl was suspended and can't return to school until August, her mother, Constance Ruff, told WMAZ-TV, which first reported the story.
"We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it's horrifying. It's devastating," her aunt told The Associated Press.
Elsewhere in the U.S., incidents involving students, police and handcuffs have raised difficult questions for educators, parents and policymakers.
In Florida, the use of police in schools came up several years ago when officers arrested a kindergartner who threw a tantrum during a jelly bean-counting contest. Since then, the overall number of student arrests in Florida has declined, but those for minor offenses have increased on a percentage basis. A bill was proposed this year to restrict police from arresting kids for misdemeanors or other acts that do not pose serious safety threats.
Annette Montano, a mother in Albuquerque, N.M., said her 13-year-old son was arrested last year after burping in gym class. The tension between him and school officials led to several more run-ins, including a strip search after he was accused of selling drugs, she said.
Finally, she said, she pulled him from the school in November. It took her three months to get him placed elsewhere.
___
Associated Press writer Jeri Clausing in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this story.
___
Information from: WMAZ-TV, www.wmaz.com/
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Knitting&Kitties
Re: Police handcuff Georgia kindergartner for tantrum
And, no, that's not a mere tantrum.
Was there really no one on staff trained to restrain the child properly? I've known people who work with kids with behavioral problems, and they can do more than just calling the cops.
Here's a link to an article we discussed on another board earlier. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/17/11245913-kindergartner-handcuffed-taken-to-police-station-after-allegedly-throwing-tantrum-and-furniture?lite
This quote drives me fuckings crazy:
"She has mood swings some days, which all of us have mood swings some days," [her mother] told WMAZ-TV. "I guess that was just one of her bad days."
I'm not sure that a typical elementary school is going to have people trained in bodily restraint methods, though.
You know, most parents are horrified when they find out their kid was a hot mess in front of other people. There's parents are all ::shrug:: that happens sometimes. It makes me wonder what life is like at home. It also makes me kind of which they didn't have to give this kid back.
I love how the parents are more concerned about the handcuffs than they are about the hot mess, violent little meltdown their preshus just threw down.
Also, unless it's a school that hands certain levels of special needs, I would imagine there isn't anyone there trained to use those particular kind of holds that would negate the use of handcuffs. I'd rather the police use the training they've been given to handcuff her than have some amateur attempt a sleeper hold or a half nelson on a five year old.
Click me, click me!
zee, your siggy makes me lol for real
Sounds like she is not in that type of school setting. She should be placed in a different school setting for children with behavioral issues. Those schools have rooms and personnel to support such outbursts.
Awww but she just has bad moods. YOU DON'T KNOW HER LYFE!
Click me, click me!
opps,it is all so clear now!
I'm not supposed to be laughing at these, right?
I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone whose younger brother was prone to similar tantrums. Starting in preschool my mom had to work very hard with the school district as they sorted out his triggers and how to prevent future incidents.
If this had been a child who was 10 or older and physically able to overpower all the adults I would wholly agree with calling the police in. But I really have a hard time believing that nobody in that building was equipped to handle an out of control 6 year old. It makes me wonder how they would handle a true emergency where several children at once were panicking (I'm thinking a lock-down or some other situation where outside help was unavailable).
That said, given the mother's response I wonder if there was a significant history of out of control behavior here and the school has been unable to get the mother to take it seriously. If that's the case, they may have felt that calling the police was the wake-up call the parents needed to realize how serious this child's behavior is before she's 13 and it's harder to remedy the patterns.
I'm rreally concerned about this kid's home life. My sister deals with kids like this and violence like this, but her students come from poverty and abuse situations. I wonder if this girl may have a simmilar background.
Logically, yes all sped teachers should be trained in safe restraint techniques but you'd be surprised how many aren't. The people who provide the training on these techniques aren't cheap and many school districts are especially tight with the $$ so they don't have someone come do the training until they have a major issue.
Like a PP said, it costs a lot of money to be properly trained in safe restraint and protective holds. I spent 4 years in a school for children with severe emotional disturbance (every kid had an IEP). We were trained and tested 2x a year in proper techniques and believe me, we used these techniques DAILY. But because our school is super specialized, it was in our budget to provide the training.
When I moved out of state and to a new school, I had to physically restrain a child one day who was trying to stab another kid and then tried to jump out the 2nd floor window. The district sided with me b/c it was an extreme situation that was prevented from getting worse. Video security cameras helped the situation, too.
I agree with this, especially given the response of the parents. I also find it difficult to believe those handcuffs were tight on a 6 year old.
I would be mortified if my son acted like this, but I will be the first to admit I'll get ghetto on someone if they put my child in handcuffs. Handcuffs, really?
Someone hold my earrings, I need to find the vaseline.
Hot mess all around.
I know a guy who was fired because he restrained a child at the special ed school he was working at. He was trained how to do it properly. The student got a broken rib (or arm?) and blamed it on him. To not allowed a ruckus, they fired him. So yeah, I can see not wanting to just "jump on in" if you've been in the business and heard of stories like that.
Is it any wonder this is in the state that it's in with the crappy school issues? Just sayin'. I agree the parent needs to be reflective but the school should be getting this child evaluated - not just kicking her out. Schools are SUPPOSED to step in with these situations.
Exactly, teachers don't want to call the cops, but there comes a point where the situation is beyond Safety Care or Positive Behavior Intervention Supports training. And there are articles every week accusing schools of locking kids in rooms and restraining too much.
This year we had a child who had a similar escalation involving a couple broken windows, a completely trashed room, and hurt staff (from a first grader). No one wanted to go near her, it was not safe to restrain her, talking wasn't helping, waiting wasn't helping.
It's out policy not to call police unless a child leaves school property, so we just called mom to take her home, and held several IEP meetings to work out what we could/couldn't do with change of placement, more restrictive environment, and suspension.
I imagine the kid was traumatized, but the cops and the school weren't wrong.
I lived in Milledgeville for a while and can offer this:
It's not really a big town, and I doubt there are any real extra training given to teachers in the area. Yes, GA schools are atrocious. I spent the last two years of high school in GA and can honestly say that I didn't learn anything new before graduating.
If I may add an anecdote, I know a lot of kids in the area are really messed up. Assaults, weapons brought to school, and even a rape in a schools bathroom have occurred in recent times.
I hope this little girl can really get the help she needs. I don't feel like the police went to extremes here.
Like pp suggested, many SpEd teachers aren't trained. I only got trained this school year because CA rescinded major mental health funding in schools. I wanted to be prepared in case kids start going off the chain as a result.
That's a good point. Do cuffs come in six year old?
I think most adults could handle this out of control kid, even though I think you minimize the fact that she did, in fact, injure adults during the tantrum.
But don't you think that any attempt by school staff to control her would likely incite even more complaints than the cuffs did? If you don't have cuffs, you have to use sheer physical force to control her.