Open thread: Police arrest and handcuff five-year old.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=690574n&tag=related;photovideo
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M$19 Answers
I do agree that before police contact should be parental contact... But there are times they can not get ahold of the parents.. and a child has to be removed from the situation for the safety of the teacher and other children and taken somewhere to at least calm down, or wear themselves out...
Charges can and do get dropped later if they find in the end there was no real reason to charge... And they can investigate into if the parents are properly disciplining or if the child is acting out because of a mental health health disorder, or if abuse is happening behind the scenes the childs behavior is just mirroring...
If they were not eating or sleeping well, or other factors that lead to them to being out of control.
I had in school witnessed children being arrested.. in my own class room at age 9 or younger... in some cases there was no other choice, as they could not get ahold of parents or guardians and the child was so out of control they were endangering themselves, and others.
Arrest does not always lead to a charge... But it does always lead to the parent footing the cost of the police car ride, and holding... time...
All schools should start a system... with a cool off room or area.. Especially for children with disorders that lead to anxiety.. or temper issues..
I myself had a plan to have a safe areas where I could go without teachers and other students to cool down if I felt like I was losing control, and blowing something out of purportion My main issue is I am very sensitive to energies and emotions, and I sense things most people are not aware of... Small things like smells, or sounds, or the way someone approaches me can lead to social anxiety or post traumatic stress triggers.. So I have to be aware of when I can back away, and calm down...
Children at a young age.. should be allowed to have a safe place they can retreat to to cool off.. like a time out...
The teacher if they wanted to could provide and alternative assignment with the same lesson they can do alone in the library.. or allow them to sit in the hallways for a few minutes. Which was common in our school...
The hard part is when you have parents they will not cooperate and always say,
"Oh no my little daughter or son is not doing that"...
or say they are taking care of it and nothing is being done...
One the other hand we can not have children hitting, kicking, punching, spitting on other children in a public place either. If a child has issues with Tantrums then its the parents responsibility to help the school come up with a surefire plan that works... To allow the child the child to learn to back away and calm down.. but yet at the same time not to reward them for their bad behavior.
By age 9 they are old enough to write problem solving sheets..
What did I do wrong?
Why did I do it?
What was I thinking?
What will I do better the next time?
Or an adult asking them these questions after they calmed down....
To help they understand how to cope and deal with the situation the next time without a temper tantrum...
After viewing the video: She was sitting in a chair calmed down...
They should not have arrested but they should have pulled chairs up and asked the child questions like above to understand why the child is acting out.
The teacher in my opinion should not have put her arms around the child, or tried to engage further physical contact when she is out of control... Not unless the teacher is certified in holding therapy.. She should not have tried to hold or touch the child at all, and if she is gonna play goalie, she should have tried to guide her to the hallway.. where she can not get ahold of things to throw at her.. or if there is a shoe rack in the hallway just notify the other teachers to lock the doors to their class rooms let the child wear herself out throwing shoes around the hallway....Sometimes all the teacher has to do is step out of the room and away from the child not totally leave them unattended but step away and stand outside in the hallway for a moment and they will calm down.. or stand between them and like that board playing goalie but keep as much distance between them and the child not trying to trap them with their arms.. which clearly is what it appears to me she was doing trying to trap and hug the child.. Never the best move unless you are mommy or daddy to that child.
- DNatureofDTrain
my own opinion and experience
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M$Secondly, it seems pretty clear to me that this child either has some severe emotional disturbances or some other underlying condition. I have seen and dealt with children throwing worse "fits" than this, and there are much better ways to deal with it. I am not sure why the assistant principal in this video was hovering over her and what purpose that was serving. If it were me, I would have taken her to a room where she could calm down and just let her be for a bit (obviously with supervision). Continually giving a child attention in circumstances like this only escalates the problem...so they whip out a video camera?!
I don't blame the police for what they did. They are police officers, and how they handle situations like that on a daily basis is by handcuffing. They're not trained to deal with little children so they did what they know how to get her under control. However, I do think a little more common sense could have been used. Whatever emotional issues this girl had already, I am sure this incident didn't help at all, especially after so much attention has been given to it.
Ultimately, I blame the school administration for calling the police in the first place. This girl was not a physical threat to anyone. If anyone should have been called, it should have been a counselor, school psychologist, or the child's parents. I hope the little girl gets the help she needs.
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M$
I was put in the back of a police car when I was a child for a minor offense and it scared me to the point where I have never sat in one since.. My point being respect for authority needs to be learned at a young age.
How did the handcuffs even fit anyways?
life
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M$
I would like to know what actually happened. Whatever she did, I bet it won't happen again. The parents can sue all they want, but children nowadays need to be kept in line. If they don't listen the first time, they need to learn using some other means.
@demanda : Do we want to operate on the premise...?
Yes! If they do not possess the moral capability to be motivated by a respect for authority and love of country, then we must use something which does motivate them: self preservation (not just life but quality of life).
Robert Heinlein neatly lays out the argument in Starship Troopers (a book that qualifies much better as philosophy than sci-fi).
The whole "it's not always the parents..." bit is a nice way of excusing those who can't or don't want to put the effort into educating and forming their children.
I think immediately pointing to the parents is unfair in this situation. It looks like the child has some emotional issues that need to be dealt with. Do we really want to operate on the premise of scaring children into being good citizens? I highly doubt sitting in the back of a police car as a child is the reason you haven't been in one since. It's, unfortunately, not that simple.
Robert Heinlein was not talking about 5 year old kids. He was speaking of older children who are aware of the consequences of their actions. A five year old kid can still run out into the street without looking. A seven year old kid will strip down to their underpants and run through a sprinkler without any thought of modesty. A nine year old has no idea why a 12 year old might like to kiss. The only thing that this incident will do is to convince the other kids that the police are the "enemy," exactly what we do not wish to teach them.
This situation has nothing to do with moral capacity or respect for authority! This is a child, who very obviously, has some serious issues going on. Believe it or not, some children have problems that are NOT because of their parents. You can't blame parents for everything. Frightening someone into behaving is not the answer, and I am appalled you would think so.
The handcuffs was a bad idea.... have you ever felt handcuffs! They cause adults to bleed. Also it is not always the parents. I agree with @demanda.
The police "handcuffed" her with plastic ties.
I'm glad this is an isolated case, police have better things to do then arrest every kindergartner who has a temper tantrum.
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M$
Yes, I'm sure that if this girl needs long-term therapy and neurodiagnostic testing it is ONLY because of the police incident. Nope, no underlying issues there. No siree.
Now she has an excuse for life to behave badly and get attention: She was handcuffed in Kindergarten. I know of kids who have been through a lot more, and don't get cash settlements or require neurodiagnostic testing.
Ok.. I actually did find a bit more information.
The Mother is named Inga Akins and the little girls name is Ja’eisha.
Inga was able to settle with the city and was compensated $18,000 for the incident.
A lawsuit stated.
---Quote--
The girl, now 8, will need long-term therapy, says the lawsuit, filed March 12 in Pinellas circuit court by Inga Akins, 27, the girl’s mother.
“As a result of this incident, (the girl) is petrified about attending school, is afraid of law enforcement officers, has been severely traumatized and suffers from fear and anxiety,” the suit says. The girl “has a permanent impairment related to the situation with the police and will require continuing long-term therapy and neurodiagnostic testing.”…
--/quote--
http://hungryblues.net/tag/inga-akins/
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/30/Southpinellas/Ire_aimed_at_handcuff.shtml
School systems are supposed to have a written policy in place to handle situations of this nature. I don't know if you remember being five and thrust in an unfamiliar environment with people you do not know and rules that you never had to adhere to until that point. Many children have adjustments problems. Each one will respond in a different way. We may never know now why this child had a major meltdown in school, but the response to it was over the top.
The minumum age of prosecution in St. Petersburg, FL is ten, but there is a new pattern that is emerging where they are arresting more and more children under ten. Most of these children are African-American, a whopping 55 percent under the age of 12, 1 in 4 for are charge with battery in school. The school population for African-Americans is only 21%. If 55 percent were not minorities, maybe this would have been addressed four years ago. The parents are not to blame for a disparity in treatment.
Arresting a five year old for a tantrum, really where does it stop. If you were upset by this, my source mentions a three year old that was charged with arson of a preschool. What next, do we charge babies for throwing up on people after they have eaten? The bigger question is while the police are arresting our children, what are the real criminals doing? Maybe that is a question we should be asking.
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M$
I can't quite figure out why restraining a child who is having a tantrum is lawsuit worthy. If my parents found out that I was so out of control that the police were called, the police would not have been the ones in trouble. If the child did indeed have an emotional disorder, I still don't think restraining her until something else was figured out was a bad idea. If this child had not been restrained and instead managed to hurt herself or another child, I'm sure people would have said, "Why didn't they tie her down so she couldn't get to the scissors?" or whatever. The fact that this child's mother looked into suing indicates that she likely does not believe her child is responsible for her own behavior, which perhaps led to such out of control behavior. A more responsible mother would have figured out why her child had such tantrums, addressed the problem, and apologized to the school for interfering with the educational process of all the other children.
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M$First and foremost, aren't elementary-aged children taught that the police are there to help and protect them? Isn't this going against everything this poor child should be learning? At a time in a child's life when they should be able to trust and respect law enforcement, they will now forever be afraid and humiliated in their presence.
I agree with some previous posters that there is no circumstance in which some counseling cannot help a child of this age. Children in their very young years are still developing their personality. The way that adults react to this development has an astounding effect on who the child will become. Children of this age do not act out in this manner to simply act out. There is almost certainly some underlying issue that brought the child to this point in the first place. This should be investigated, and the proper channels should be sought out. Placing this child under arrest in such a horrific manner probably only escalated the situation even further, both for child AND those responsible for his or her care and well being.
I also wonder how these police officers must have felt when their shifts were over and they discussed this with their families. How will they feel with their pictures streaming all over the world, having to deal with the fact that they caused undue distress to some poor, defenseless little child? That they caused such humiliation?
In my opinion, this is just another example of how carried away people can become, and also of complete misuse of the legal system. People, including children, make mistakes. They should be handled in age-appropriate and proper manner. Period.
My Opinion
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M$
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M$This is a serious screw up. The school officials acted completely wrong in this case. Did she commit a crime? Do we just arrest kids that are unruly in school now?
I say go ahead and sue the school/county police for millions.
Was this child arrested?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h_krGmcAVk
My life exp.
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M$
This 7 year old was not arrested or ticketed. I saw him and his family on TV this morning and it was mildly disturbing that Meredith Viera was the only one not just pushing this aside.
The boy (Preston) was gorunded for 4 days to his room by his parents with no video games or TV and responded to the question "Is that a fair pinishment?" with a up and down head nod indicating a yes.
I still can't really grasp why no legal action of any kind was taken against the boy or his parents.
This joyride/escape could have ended a whole lot worse and just because it did not should not remove the legal ramifications from the boy and his parents.
Call the parents? What decade are you living in? Did you read about the story, Jeffhoard found the relevant paper here: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/30/Southpinellas/Ire_aimed_at_handcuff.shtml
The absent father, as of that date, had been arrested a dozen times mostly on drug charges. The mother had been in jail three times for minor stuff but is evidently a scofflaw. That's what a large percentage of parents in urban schools are like these days. When the mother sold the case to tabloid tv and then sued the city, the whole community was disgusted..
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M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96WPpn1dQ-A
Yea skateboarding is off limit in some area, I give the cop and the man credit for that, but the way they handled it, totally wrong. Listen to the kid saying how bad it hurts. How rude, why is he the only one being arrested?
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M$While I don't all the facts here -- I think every party is at fault, and all should face disciplinary action.
The teacher should not have called the police. If the child is uncontrollable call the parents. If you can't get the parents; call the emergency contact. If you can't get the emergency contact put the child in an isolated room. The police should be after "ambulance" in the chain of decisions.
The police should not have shown up (really? 3 cops?), should not have handcuffed her, and should have had better judgment than this. I'm generally a vigorous defender of the police (who are frequently judged for making split second decisions), but there is no defense to this. The only thing the police should have done is hunt down her parents.
And where were her parents? Why weren't they there? As a parent if my child was causing such a problem I'd want to know immediately. If this was just a tantrum I'd be making sure it didn't happen again. If it was more than that (ADHD) I'd be getting help.
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M$
My irritation is really with a lot of the answers, only the last paragraph of your one. Why are people saying that they don't have the information to comment when the whole point of Mahalo is researching information? And why do so many answers seem to assume a two parent family with no drugs or arrest records?
Why didn't you research the case? Jeffhoard found a link to the paper with the full story. This is not some 1950's sitcom-type family.
I did research the article. I was interested enough to find it when the video wasn't working. I also read the tampa bay article, and I agree with the statement (made in the article) that she was one of the players who helped "things go awry". All parties are at fault, whether its 1950 or 2009.
Honestly, I'm confused about the point you are trying to make. Do you think because she has a drug/arrest history we should give her leeway? What does that have to do with the teachers calling the cops or the cops handcuffing a little girl?
One of the points I was trying to make was that calling the family or expecting any useful action from that source has been pretty useless for a long time now. Hopefully a school will be better set up to cope than this one was; but, many urban schools are in bad shape too and probably don't even have school psychologists or counselors. The choices are often the teacher or the police.
Another point is that there is no reason to say "I would have done" this or that wonder where the parents are (as if there were two) because we're not talking about traditional families.
And what about the parents? Weren't they called to come pick up their daughter? That's what should have been done, there was absolutely no reason for the police to have been called in this situation.
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M$However, such desires ultimately ignore reality. The reality is when the child is placed in a social situation the parents have a moral liability for the child's behavior even if the child is left in somebody else's care. The reality is also that at any time the child has a moral liability for her own behavior up to the limits of her understanding. It is not necessary for her to understand the reasoning behind the rules only necessary for her to understand behavior X is unacceptable. As she grows up then she will be expected to see behavior X is unacceptable because...
As for the argument saying things would be better if the teacher stepped out of the room, the teacher is not the one offending the social order, the child is. Social order would not be fixed by the removal the the teacher even if the child calmed down because the other students would still not be taught.
As for the police actions, their job is to protect social order. The child's attendance at the school is contingent upon a contract which has as its clause that the child will obey the teacher and follow the rules in exchange for the right to attend the school and be present on the grounds. After various attempts at correcting the situation (e.g. telling the child to stop, calling the parents, etc...) the contract is broken and the child loses the right to be at the school. It is then the duty of the police to remove the child from the school. The handcuffs are used for restraint not as a means of punishment or shaming. Shame comes from you and others knowing you acted in such a way that restraint became necessary.
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M$
This situation has nothing to do with moral capacity or respect for authority. This is a child, who very obviously, has some serious issues going on. Believe it or not, some children have problems that are NOT because of their parents. This girl's parents probably did contribute to her emotional state, but the fact remains that frightening a CHILD into behaving is not the answer. I am appalled you would think so.
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M$
How about we just have a pretend axe murderer swing a bloody axe at them? That will scare them also.
Wow! Sounds like a lesson from George Bluth.
It's not a matter of frightening them. It's a matter of teaching them even if you don't/can't care about something other than yourself, there are still reasons to obey the rules. i.e. even if you only care about yourself, what you care about will still be affected negatively by your actions.
Frightening kids does not make them "better kids." If anything, frightening an already emotionally disturbed child only makes the situation worse. I could see where you're coming from if you were talking about a teenager, but a 5 year old kindergartner??
I have Aspergers Syndrome so know some of the problems faced with having ADD and ADHD.
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M$
Totally man. Any kid who acts out has ADHD. Really now, I understand the kid was going nuts, but don't be ignorant and just dismiss it as a disease. There are a ton of kids that've been raised with a lack of discipline that would act like this. That doesn't mean they have ADHD or something like that.
According to the newspaper she is pretty much a normal kid.
You should be very careful diagnosing people you don't even know. ADHD and ADD are usually misdiagnosed. It doesn't matter what your medical record says. You cannot prove your qualifications as a health-specialist in an answer.
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M$
I would like to know what she was arrested for.
I mean what would the police do if she acted out against them? Shoot her with a taser?
Im not sure what "more" you would have to know.
We do not arrest 5 year old children who throw a fit in school.
END OF STORY.