5 Yr. Old Arrested For Battery

[Jeff Stallard]

I love the mother's reaction at the end of the article!! Hahaha Thanks to that loser mother (yes, I'm jumping to conclusions), that girl has a lot less of a chance in life.

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St. Petersburg 5-year-old cuffed after school outburst

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."

[glauber]

How horrible. I hope this is a hoax. If not, file under "another clue that the US is going crazy."

I read it a few times, but i don't think it says the mother did it. It looked like the mother was looking for a way to sue the school.

[ChrisA]

Well, searching the web didn't show up -this- case, but it showed up a bunch of others.
Apparently arresting young children is becoming standard procedure for violent outbursts.
If I were the parent, I'd be suing the school too, actually... not because they 'framed' my
'angel', because I wouldn't buy that for a minute, but because dragging a tiny child off in
handcuffs in the back of a squad car is an absurd action. (Suing, aside from the money
which is more or less silly and irrelevant, and going to the lawyers anyway, would put the
situation in the spotlight, which can effect policy change pretty quickly...)

A child committing a violent outburst needs to be handled by school authorities, not law
enforcement. (And yes, obviously in extreme cases 'handling' means sending the child back
to their parents and refusing to deal with said child.) I'm not sure exactly what case
law says, though. Anyway. Results of my search:




(AP) - James City County Police arrested an eight-year-old boy who allegedly had a violent outburst in school.

Authorities say he head-butted his teacher and kicked an assistant principal when he was told he couldn't go outside to play with other students.

The four-foot pupil was led away from Williamsburg's Rawls Byrd Elementary School in handcuffs Tuesday and charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery.

Major Stan Stout says the student began tossing chairs and turning over desks after a teacher - and later the assistant principal - tried to stop him from joining his classmates.

The child was later released to his parents.

(source: rightnation.us, or neowin.net; alleged original source, AP)




"Trayvon McRae is 6 years old.

After throwing a tantrum in music class, and kicking and hitting a St. Petersburg police officer who was taking him home, this kindergartener was handcuffed and arrested on a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer. Both of his wrists fit neatly into a single cuff.

Mikey Rao was 8 when he got arrested.

He didn't want to go to the principal's office, so he ran out of his class and kicked and scratched a teacher's aide. He spent several hours in the Citrus County Jail.

Demetri Starks turned 9 last week.

One day this summer, when he was still 8, he swiped a neighbor's jar of change. Police stopped the 60-pound St. Petersburg boy wearing a T-shirt covered with monsters from the cartoon Digimon. They handcuffed him and sent him to a detention center where he stayed locked up for nine days."

Source, and rest of article (this one is a long editorial):
http://www.sptimes.com/News/121700/Tamp ... rres.shtml

[aderyn_du]

This bothers me a great deal-- not only for the precedence it sets, but for the long-term psychological effect this may have on the child, and the other children viewing the arrest. Clearly the child behaved in an inappropriate manner, and the actions should be dealt with so that the child can see how her actions carry consequences. But arresting a child at that age serves absolutely no purpose. A child at that age still needs direction in recognizing right and wrong-- conducted in a loving, nurturing, constructive manner. Placing that little girl under arrest is fear-based and non-nurturing... which can only lead to her acting out again at a later time.

I cannot fathom what our society is coming to that this could be something that is happening on a regular basis, and is condoned! Outrageous.

[lixnaw]

This bothers me a great deal-- not only for the precedence it sets, but for the long-term psychological effect this may have on the child, and the other children viewing the arrest. Clearly the child behaved in an inappropriate manner, and the actions should be dealt with so that the child can see how her actions carry consequences. But arresting a child at that age serves absolutely no purpose. A child at that age still needs direction in recognizing right and wrong-- conducted in a loving, nurturing, constructive manner. Placing that little girl under arrest is fear-based and non-nurturing... which can only lead to her acting out again at a later time.

I cannot fathom what our society is coming to that this could be something that is happening on a regular basis, and is condoned! Outrageous.

i second everything, those teachers are no longer capable to teach, they need to be re-educated, or take a different job, there should be a law against this.

[Redwolf]

One of the frustrating things, I know, for the schools, is they're not empowered to deal with children having these kinds of violent outbursts. Legally, they can't even restrain a child or discipline him or her (beyond suspension) without facing some kind of legal action (the result of our sue-happy society). So if they can't reach the parents right away (and often they can't, because Mom and Dad are much too busy at work to deal with their children), calling the police may be their only real option to protect the other children at the school.

I say this as the parent of a kid with ADHD and Anxiety Disorder, who often became violent during the younger grades in school (she's much better now, thanks to A LOT of intervention). I was always reachable, and able to be on top of the situation immediately, but I don't know what they would (or should!) have done if they couldn't have reached me quickly. The other kids need to be protected too. I don't like seeing children taken off in handcuffs either, but between parents who are quicker to sue than they are to take responsibility for their children, overburdened teachers, and increasingly restrictive laws regarding what schools can and can't do to preserve order, what in the heck are they to do?

Redwolf

[ChrisA]

there should be a law against this.

In the long article I linked to ("Under Twelve and Under Arrest") the author says that historically,
common law prevented arrest and prosecution of persons under six, and that fifteen states
specifically have laws on the book stating an age below which you can't arrest a child.

Florida does not have such an age limit, and has specifically passed measures to ensure that
more juvenile misbehaviours are treated as felonies (though the target was mean to been
teenage crime, probably because of gangs though that wasn't specifically mentioned).

I fortunately don't live in Florida. I unfortunately don't know what the law actually is here,
and I suppose I should (though, I do know it usually takes quite a bit for even a teenager
to get arrested here; there's a lot of individual discretion though, which has its good and
bad points.)

[missy]

lixnaw:

what would you propose the teachers do? In most cases, their hands are tied. They have to follow whatever directives are in their school handbook - and usually that states sending the child to the office. Several of those stories quoted stated that the kids began acting up when they were sent TO the office.
It's really hard to time out or whatever when you have 20+ kids (especially kids that are 5, 6, or 7) in a room to also keep an eye on.
And, when a teacher does try to have some control over the classroom, they are constantly threatened with being sued?

Do - I agree with putting a 5 year old in handcuffs? If he was being a physical threat to himself, or others, and other avenues had been exhausted (remember, in most cases, only a certain person such as a principal may touch a child, even for restraint purposes) then I don't see how you couldn't. Kids that age can physically harm an adult - and especially the other kids. What happens when the thrown book or desk hurts another child?

Of course there are better ways to handle the aggression - but in many school districts, the teachers hands are tied and they can't DO anything.

Missy

[lixnaw]

lixnaw:

what would you propose the teachers do? In most cases, their hands are tied. They have to follow whatever directives are in their school handbook - and usually that states sending the child to the office. Several of those stories quoted stated that the kids began acting up when they were sent TO the office.
It's really hard to time out or whatever when you have 20+ kids (especially kids that are 5, 6, or 7) in a room to also keep an eye on.
And, when a teacher does try to have some control over the classroom, they are constantly threatened with being sued?

Do - I agree with putting a 5 year old in handcuffs? If he was being a physical threat to himself, or others, and other avenues had been exhausted (remember, in most cases, only a certain person such as a principal may touch a child, even for restraint purposes) then I don't see how you couldn't. Kids that age can physically harm an adult - and especially the other kids. What happens when the thrown book or desk hurts another child?

Of course there are better ways to handle the aggression - but in many school districts, the teachers hands are tied and they can't DO anything.

Missy

i'm sure teachers should be different and better educated and payed better, their job highly underestimated.

[rasp]

a shock collar should be employed on the parents of these roudy children, when the children act up the parents get it. they are the ones directly responsible for teaching thier children to act proper, not the schools.

[Redwolf]

a shock collar should be employed on the parents of these roudy children, when the children act up the parents get it. they are the ones directly responsible for teaching thier children to act proper, not the schools.

It really isn't a matter of "teaching their children to act proper" (we try to teach our children to "use grammar proper" too, but see what happens?), but often of being available.

Again, speaking as the parent of a child with serious emotional issues, I can tell you that she often did things at school that we were constantly trying to address at home as well...including throwing violent tantrums. The difference was, I was a stay-at-home mom, and ALWAYS available to come to the school immediately if there was a problem. My husband's employers have always known, up front, that if there was a problem with his child, THAT CHILD CAME FIRST, and if he needed to be at the school, he was there. He's lost a job or two over that...so be it. We survived. We worked WITH the school and with our daughter's doctors to come up with a plan and to stick to it. I'm sorry to say that many parents out there are way too busy with their own lives to bother raising their own kids. It's day care to school to day care to afterschool activities, and "don't bother me, I have my own needs to meet."

Kids will continue to have emotional outbursts, but what the schools will and can do depends greatly on parental involvment. If the parents can't be bothered, what's a school to do?

At the same time, I've seen people sneer at my daughter's tantrums and whisper "spoiled!" or "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Be aware, when you see a child in this situation, that the parents may be VERY involved and VERY upset with what is happening...but that children aren't programmable, and they don't always do what even the very best parents would have them do.

Redwolf

[TooTs]

deleted by moderator

Thank you, Dale.

[s1m0n]

What else can the school do? Teachers are TERRIFIED these days to ever touch a child, for fear of being charged with abuse.

If the child is out of control, they have no other place to turn apart from the police or a parent.

We're raising a generation of children who will almost literally have never been touched by an adult male, apart (perhaps) from their father. I don't mean abused--I mean touched, like a hug, a pat of the shoulder or a slap on the back. Kids these days walk around with an invisible bubble around them, a bubble that adults--again, particularly males adults--dare not enter.

I don't mean that we should be blase about real abuse, but this social isolation is also doing damage.

[Dale]

Cranberry wrote, in a different thread:

I am sorry for falsely quoting Martin Milner, TooTs, and Gary Kelly earlier today. It was meant to be funny but apparently to some it wasn't. Sorry.

[Jack]

Cranberry wrote, in a different thread:

I am sorry for falsely quoting Martin Milner, TooTs, and Gary Kelly earlier today. It was meant to be funny but apparently to some it wasn't. Sorry.

Oh. I thought you meant for me to make it its own thread.

Sorry for that, too.