US police handcuff five-year-old Girl. Has The World Gone Mad?

less spittle to clean up in the squad car afterward.

I didn't see an example of the last sentence you posted herein, but the rest of your post has a lot of merit to it. Yeah. I suppose the police could've carried the child out, but what if they thought the girl's mother would've sued them for improper handling of her "precious" child? What if the officers felt the best way to handle the situation without causing the child physical harm (which wouldn't have been okay -- again, bruising or fractures or both are NEVER acceptable) would have been to slip on the handcuffs.

I'm actually more angry at the mother than at the child, BTW. I mean, if the child was acting up THAT badly with even the PRINCIPAL of the school, what kind of message is that sending about the child's lack of discipline at home? Maybe what she did at that school has been tolerated for quite a long time at home as being something "cute". I've seen lots of examples of children acting incredibly rudely who get nothing but positive feedback from their parents, e.g. "Oh, look, he/she's being cute," or "Oh, he/she's just acting like a little kid -- let him/her be." And that ruins the child.

Anyway. Yeah. Anything to keep that child from being injured, y'know? She just needed to be restrained.

Anyway, I doubt that she'll be scarred for life by the experience -- I think the imagery is probably more disturbing than the reality here.

A much bigger problem is that this child has some serious issues and needs help.

As soon as the cops show up, she's very aware of their presence as well as that of the camera. She immediately drops her head once the cops arrive. It's all there in the video.

Anyhow, kudos to that teacher.

after being on a ferry across the irish sea w/ a bunch of screaming german brats sitting not too far from me, i can definitely understand the need for a little discipline sometimes.

JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE!!!

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/classroom.html

CAUGHT ME A FE-ROCIOUS DAWG

OTM Trayce. The teachers following a little kid around the room doing a vague "no don't do that" and then calling the cops? WTF? What kind of school is that where they don't see the million of options in between? How about putting her in the corner for a time out...or sending her to the principal's office until her mom came. They were stupid and they're probably going to get the shit sued out of them.

I thought that was the principal's office.

Where she was running around? In the video that looked like the regular classroom.

If that doesn't work, we show the kid a picture of fat Corey Haim.

http://headlesszombiebunny.blogspot.com/

I also never saw a grown-up try to engage the child at all. Nobody tried to get the kid to articulate her frustrations or ask her what her problem was.

3 Police Officers for a distressed 5 year-old? Florida must have no serious crime whatsoever. Oh, hang on...

I'm not saying kids should do whatever they want, but force and threats are never the way to deal with these situations, never. Having a clue about the average developmental level of a kid that age would be a start. These tantrums are all about frustration and inability to express what's upsetting them. God knows there's enough adults who like to resort to fists and abuse when they don't get their own way.

My mom was a substitute teacher for a while and she recalls that teachers and administrators told her, "Don't touch the students lest you be charged with child molestation"

Actually, its pretty unusual for a 5 year old kid to tear up a room and assault a teacher
Oh, that's bullshit! In kindergarten I changed schools and got stuck in this horrible 60-something lady's classroom for a month and that happened just about everyday. I managed to switch classrooms because I complained to my parents of how she liked to single me out for this and that in a very embarrassing fashion and pretty much gave reasons for my peers to taunt me. I was pretty unhappy about changing schools and cried every once in a while because of my sensitivity and how I was picked on a lot by my peers for being a lot brighter than they were, not to mention that this was around the time when my parents' marriage started really falling apart as my father became increasingly abusive (and for the next few years I'd act out many frustrations because I was so miserable, not to mention that my environment at home wasn't conducive to my social development as I had no playmates whatsoever and never went outside and never enjoyed being at home or school). Anyway, on more than one occasion, say if someone else in the classroom started bawling or, most notably in my mind, when in the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Awful, Really Bad Day the title character started bawling, she said, "Oh, he sounds like Ian!" For the next three years until she finally retired, she'd always look at me condescendingly whenever I passed her in the breezeway and go unnecessarily out of her way to talk to me and would subtly mock me. Kate Condra, fuck you.

Yeah, it's

My response should have read that it's possible to sued for anything these days, not that anyone else isn't aware of that...

I don't have statistics, but I can say with some certainty that the kids who receive the worst beatings at home are way more likely to have "behavioural problems" than kids that are never so much as spoken to harshly.

Thank goodness they got it on tape.

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/office.html

where she's already in the principal's office. where she's already caused trouble in class, she's gone to the teachers office. she's already tore up the principal's office. then she proceeds to hit her and climb everywhere etc etc. now that happens and continues to happen without slowing down for about 5 minutes or so.

i'm wondering, would anybody gladly live through another 55 minutes of that? you can't barely touch the kid cause you'll get sued. her mom isn't showing up. she's destroying things. etc etc.

you can't really reward her to get her to calm down. (although, granted, that would restrain her.) this is definitely a girl that needs some extra love and care... more attention than your average mainstreamed kid gets.

i dunno, what else can they do at that point?

this is weird:

"i'm the one you told your mom you put handcuffs on you."

so has this happened before?

i'm not sure if it's excessive or not, but i'm not aware of what other options they could've used either.
m.

of course, having her mainstreamed is still ideal tho. the "special class" situation can be quite a serious stigma for some kids. i know dudes that were permanently branded because of it and that blows.

m.

To answer the title question, the world (well, mainstream American society) has gone mad if a teacher can't contain a pupil on the account of the fear of being sued for molestation.

i wonder what the backstory is?

i heard a cop said something?

why handcuffs?

on a child?

Clock?!

Thousands?

Clock?!
YES!

to me the biggest shame is that by her mom suing, she's reinforcing her daughter's behavior. now granted, we have no clue why this girl is acting up and perhaps there's a pretty legit reason to, but damn, if they win, will this girl ever respect the cops?

maybe she has no reason to.

hmm.

a lot of families in cali sue the school system to get adequate care for their disabled child, cause that's the only way to rip the $$ from the hands of the system to actually get good care. i wonder if this girl needs that too. i mean seriously, what good is this school gonna do for this girl in the future? if you're callin the cops, you're essentially giving up on the child. maybe that's the best they can do, but damn, she's five!

break one heart,
m.

That's a crock of shit. ESPECIALLY because the video was running, a responsible adult with ANY fucking notion of child rearing (and without, I daresay, the terror of black children that a lot of middle class white people have) could have goten that child under control. Every boneheaded jerkface can file a lawsuit for anything, and the vast majority do not succeed. The scene in the principal's office is sickening, and it's pretty clear to me that the prinicipal's "hover and do nothing" approach probably made matters worse.

Haha, I was about to say SAM TO THREAD.

i'm just curious, are you guys that say stuff like this, are you parents or do you work with kids these ages?

m.

See if you cant DO anything about misbehaving, it will run amok. Human beings need boundaries and discipline of some kind.

the US education system is already fills the void left by absentee parenting, it comes as no surprise its gotten so out of control that they need to call the cops to administer discipline. its weak logic to place the blame on the parent, even though they are *part* of the problem. absentee parentism is a part of american culture; the way in which we've decided to handle it has failed.

Nah, but, you know, I have relatives, and friends with kids, and so on. "Kids" as Steven Wright put it in the Conan re-run I just saw "they're all over the place!"

They're so cute as long as you can walk away from them, eh?

I don't find children cute (not that that has anything to do with anything.)

OK, it's because of fear of lawsuits, it's because of this, it's because of that, I don't care. It is wrong to criminalize children for childish behavior. It reminds me of some of those insane "zero tolerance" cases. Serial killers need "zero tolerance"; kids need help.

The original point was normal-ish 5 year-old behaviour results in Police action = Insanity. That doesn't look like exceptional behaviour from an upset child that age to me. I wouldn't dream of drawing further conclusions about her family life from one video. Any professional who works with children who can't deal with a situation like that needs to go back to school themselves, pronto. You talk calmly, you give space, you make sure the child don't hurt themselves (badly) and you understand that the tantrum will burn itself out. And you recognise that this is developmentally normal behaviour so you don't have a shit-fit about it. I'd be way more worried about a pre-school kid that never threw a wobbly.

Children are not small adults. The rules are just a bit different. Maybe if the US or the UK paid its early years workers enough and gave them enough respect, we'd have workers better able to deal with everyday situations like this one.

OTM

Watching the video makes this all the more frustrating. What the fuck kind of adults don't even attempt to employ proven effective child-control techniques like Full Name Spoken With Voluminous Force or Take Away Favorite Priveleges? Not the kind of adults that need to be teaching/assistant principling.

Which, dudes, in terms of scaring and/or traumatizing her: has it occurred to anyone that this may originally have been the idea? A little bit of first-grade Scared Straight, executed by people oblivious enough not to realize that handcuffing a five-year-old would likely come under some scrutiny later?

And for the record, sad of a comment as this is about the American educational system, everyone who's surprised that the police became involved has got a bit of a rose-tinted screen. Low teacher pay plus litigious public (plus student/teacher race/culture difference) = not particularly surprising that the teacher didn't want to lay a hand on the girl beyond what was absolutely necessary. Yeah, a better authoritarian wouldn't have let things get nearly to that point, but a lot of public-school teachers in this country don't get nearly enough support to bother. I mean, here we are having our thread: "Should police have handcuffed little girl? Why is teacher so ineffective?" That's a much better turnout for her than the alternate-reality thread that goes "Should ineffective authority-lacking teacher have physically restrained little girl?"

xpost: This isn't solely a black/white thing, but I'm kind of with Dan -- I'd be very surprised if the girl's probable background didn't play into the teacher's blase hands-off "let somebody else deal with this" attitude. That has nothing to do with "racism" and everything to do with a teacher's sense of how she can or can't relate to children and their families.

Now, this is OTM.

My school would have a padded cell for 'alone time'.

xpost -- I know, Nick, those were just my two theoretical examples. She might actually be trying an authority voice and just failing miserably, but it seems more like she'd long given up and was just containing the girl till police arrived. I feel vaguely proud of myself having thought up "attempted distractions," which is probably a step further than this teacher got.

That doesn't defend the cops swooping in and handcuffing her immediately instead of other options they could've pursued but I really think you people are being way too hard on the teacher and the principal in this situation.

xpost basically the second thing that nabisco just said right now, that I think it's a lot more likely that the school has just seriously given up on this situation. That's not right but I mean they're human beings--if this girl needs special help than she should get it. Average school teachers are not really the people for that.

Oh and FWIW if I was a teacher, the second the kid slaps me, I'm belting her right back. Which is why I am not a teacher. I don't really think this behavior is normal, either, because I don't really remember that many fits when I was a kid from other kids in public. I don't remember ever getting in trouble myself in public, or my sisters doing so. Kids that I do know that behave in a really obnoxious fashion, loads of temper tantrums and belligerence in public (which is different from in private, at home, where I think that's more normal), are not viewed as normal by anyone I know! DO I LIVE IN A PROPERLY BEHAVED UTOPIA?

Also, I believe I heard the teacher saying they were calling the "campus police" meaning, these are not regular beat cops, but people who are specifically trained in handling campus disturbances.

Finally, Dee, I found your strong reaction very interesting. Do you deal with children a lot?

Holler.

Dee's law-and-order reaction was totally upstaged by the guy who called a five year old girl a bitch!

that being said I also saw plenty of adults "putting hands on" the kids: throwing them up against lockers, paddling them, jerking them around. I never did this nor did any other non-black faculty but the faculty and staff was about 85% black.

I'm not certain that being in a petulant and recalictrant frame of mind would lead the average five-year-old to bounds of erudition. Also, my scary-genius sister-in-law was so quiet as a child that they thought she was retarded when in fact she was just bored.

Scuse me, but how the fuck do you know?
I have only seen a few seconds of the video, but, from what Spencer said, I think the cuffing was meant to a) restrain her with the minimum amount of physical contact and b) show her that they ain't playin around. None of us know the full backstory, so who can say what methods were tried or not tried previously to get through to this girl. She wasn't hurt and the message got across to her --- the way the situation was handled wasn't ideal but I don't think it warrants any brouhaha (or, y'know, noodle vague being a cock)

You can forget about that kid ever having any trust in "authority" ever again. Of course, given the kid's behavioral problems, they probably already respond poorly to authority.

This posted yesterday:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_re_us/girl_charged

Calif. Girl, 11, Avoids Felony Trial

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 3, 7:07 PM ET

FRESNO, Calif. - An 11-year-old girl who threw a rock at a boy during a water balloon fight escaped jail time Wednesday on a felony assault with a deadly weapon charge after lawyers worked out a deal in the emotionally charged case.

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Maribel Cuevas was ordered to meet with her young victim and talk about the fight under the deal — reached on the same day the girl was to stand trial in juvenile court. She did not have to plead guilty, and the charges will be dismissed if she stays in school and keeps out of trouble.

Maribel spent five days in juvenile hall and a month under house arrest after throwing a 2-pound rock at 8-year-old Elijah Vang, cutting his forehead after he pelted her with a water balloon in April. The gash required Elijah to receive stitches.

Police responded with three cars while a helicopter hovered overhead, and said they arrested Maribel for resisting arrest and scratching an officer's arm. Police described the rock as "jagged" and measuring 5.5 inches by 3.75 inches.

Top brass on the force defended the response, but others took up Maribel's cause, saying it was no way to treat a childish crime. Supporters gathered outside the court, chanting "Free Maribel," and singing "We Shall Overcome."

As she awaited her hearing, the girl dressed in pink sweat pants, a white sweat shirt and pink flip-flops was handed a bouquet of flowers.

Maribel's father, Martin Cuevas, said in Spanish after the proceeding that his daughter was not a criminal and had acted in self-defense.

"I think everything will be fine," Martin Cuevas said in Spanish. "This way she'll be able to stay with my wife and me and go to school normally."

As part of the agreement, the two children, with their parents present, will talk about what happened. The girl's lawyer said his main goal was to prevent her from pleading guilty to a crime.

"They did not require any admission of wrongdoing, and once that obstacle was removed, the case was settled appropriately," said defense lawyer Richard Beshwate Jr.

Elijah's family, which has since moved away, declined to press charges, but were prepared to testify for the prosecution.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Griggs said her office decided to proceed without a trial because of the girl's age and because the Vang family wanted the matter resolved so they can return to their neighborhood "in a way that is safe so all these children can coexist together."

Kimberly Nystrom-Geist, a court commissioner who presided over the hearing, said the order requiring Maribel and Elijah to talk about what happened "would be the most appropriate resolution to this matter. It allows Maribel to go back to the neighborhood and make amends."

In an interview Wednesday, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer stood by the actions of his officers.

"It has always been our intention to ensure that the right thing is done. The right thing is not always the popular thing," he said, adding the department has nearly completed its internal review.

"If we truly love our children we need to hold them accountable," he said.