The Today show this morning played the video of the following incident. It was quite disturbing. They had three armed uniformed officers arrest a little (40 pound) five-year-old. The article below skips some facts that were brought out on the television program like the officers were going to press charges, but the District Attorney refused. This wasn't some sort of stupid "scared straight" type thing. They were serious.
I can't find the video, but it must be on the net somewhere.
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St. Petersburg 5-year-old cuffed after school outburst
Associated Press | March 19 2005
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.
The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.
Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.
"I don't want to go to jail," she said moments after her arrest Monday.
No charges were filed and the girl went home with her mother.
While police say their actions were proper, school officials were not pleased with the outcome.
"We never want to have 5-year-old children arrested," said Michael Bessette, the district's Area III superintendent.
The district's campus police should have been called to help and not local police, he said.
Bessette said campus police routinely deal with children and are trained to calm them in such situations.
Under the district's code of student conduct, students are to be suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion for unprovoked attacks, even if they don't result in serious injury. But district spokesman Ron Stone said that rule wouldn't apply to kindergartners.
"She's been appropriately disciplined under the circumstances," he said.
The girl's mother, Inda Akins, said she is consulting an attorney.
"She's never going back to that school," Akins said. "They set my baby up."
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Hey, wait a minute here...it was the teacher that took the jelly beans. Why wasn't she arrested?
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Looks like this has happened in Florida before. Must be something in the orange juice.
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Five-year-old arrested in Florida on felony charges
By Walter Gilberti
25 February 1998
The felony arrest of a five-year-old kindergarten student in Florida, Chaquita Doman, accused of biting and scratching a support teacher, once again throws the spotlight on the ignorance and callousness that characterizes official social policy in the United States.
To read or listen to the account of the incident given by Barbara Frye, a spokeswoman for the Escambia County School District in Tallahassee, one would think that a wild animal or a desperate criminal had broken into the school.
"We had a child who went into a rage," explained Frye. "She was supposed to be in line for lunch and, in doing so, was throwing some furniture and turning some over." The child now faces a felony charge of battery of an educator or elected official.
School officials in Escambia County, in taking action as they did, were merely adopting the policy pursued by the American political and legal establishment in every situation where the social crisis manifests itself: they locked someone up. By any objective human standpoint their response was irrational. This was, after all, a five-year-old child.
The Tallahassee incident provides another glimpse at the levels of social polarization and official indifference that have been reached in the US. The young girl’s anger can only reflect, in some fashion or other, the environment in which she lives. What social problems does this child carry with her to school each day, which found expression in her temper tantrum? One assumes that the incident will only further traumatize her.
On the other hand, school officials and police feel no need to justify the arrest of a young child; it is the logical extension of a process, the criminalization of the poor and the young, that has been going on for years. The claim by the support teacher, Linda Green, that she sought the child’s arrest so that she could receive mandatory counseling, only reveals the sense of powerlessness and despair that pervades many school districts.
I don't know, some kids are real monsters and think they can do whatever they want. I feel sorry for the teachers that have to put up with that crap. The kids aren't disciplined at home and throw tantrums whenever they don't get their way. I do think having the police arrest a child of that age is overreacting but I would fault the school administration for not having poicies in place to deal with this sort of thing.
Quote from: "TooStonedToType""She's never going back to that school," Akins said. "They set my baby up."
They set my baby up.WTF is that? Something tells me momma's been watching a little too much of the ol' boob-tube. My guess is that little sis is probably too...
In unrelated news, The DA's
Operation Candy-from-baby-Sting has netted 12 heinous little tykes who can't take a joke. They will be sentenced to five minutes hard labor each.
awe