Police handcuff Ga. kindergartner for tantrum

[CMF Newsman]

Police in Georgia handcuffed a kindergartner after the girl threw a tantrum, and the police chief is making no apologies.

WMAZ-TV (http://on.wmaz.com/I0ZrNE ) reports the 6-year-old is accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing furniture at school in the central Georgia city of Milledgeville. The police report says the girl knocked over a shelf that injured the principal.

The elementary school called police after the Friday tantrum. The report says when an officer tried to calm the child, she resisted and was handcuffed. The girl was charged with simple assault and damage to property.

Police Chief Dray Swicord says the department's policy is to handcuff people in certain situations, and "there is no age discrimination on that rule."

www.wrcbtv.com/story/17498681/police-handcuff-ga-kindergartner-for-tantrum

[apriled]

Handcuffs would have been handy through the terrible 2's, oh 3's, 4's....

[TNBear]

Handcuffs would be appropriate for educators who cannot handle a child throwing a tantrum. Calling the police on a six year old is the epitome of both uncaring education and the waste of LE resources.

[Warkitty]

If a parent handcuffed the kid, it would be child abuse

[Justin Thyme]

There are times when a young child must be physically restrained. A parent can hold his or her child. In a school setting? Handcuffs are as good of a way as any.

[apriled]

Warkitty is correct and it would be abusive. I should not have posted that remark.

I have a lot of experience with Autistic non-verbal children and even high functioning Aspergers Syndrome. All schools have these children within the spectrum of the disorder, about 1:100 and restraints become inevitable due to sensory integration and other mental health issues related to Autism, a condition I know well. Problem is the school systems are not providing the IDEA mental health services, and pushing their failure to fund onto law enforcement.

I was trained on restraint methods used for Autistic meltdowns where a child cannot control their actions due to sensory overload. I have worked withe persons with mental illness, and have been punched, kicked,..and simply overtaken by the strength of young persons with mental illness or diagnosed developmental delays. It happens, as most know. It seems if you can cuff them, you could restrain them, not sure.

I think that most principals and teachers charged with Autistic or similar children are ill equipped, trained, and funded to handle these special needs, so they call the police, when what the children need are more mental health services.

My friends and I have been monitoring how the Dawn School uses the Red Bank Police to overcome HCDE's failure to adequately staff that facility with mental health personnel. The fact is mental illness starts in childhood, and HCDE has one school for the entire County, like mental illness fits in this neat little one size fits all, so the regular schools end up with children that need more services, and the end result are regular school programs trying to fill the gap. I have a child with Aspergers Sydrome so I know a little about this.

[osrb]

My question is were the parents called? No information on that is in the story. Also the people here are talking about the child having a developmental problem this is pure speculation we do not know this. The girl could just be out of control and in needing of some good discipline. The teachers and principal will not touch a child due to the threat of lawsuit and/or arrested for child abuse they will always have someone else do this.

[apriled]

Children that lose control to the point of an educator feeling the need to handcuff has social or mental health issues, there is no speculation on that. It is abnormal behavior to tear up a room at that age. LE is not suppose to be the first intervention to deescalate meltdown in school children, LE should be last line of defense in my opinion.

Schools with children of certain diagnosis are mandated by IDEA to have interventions skills to restain and be trained on those methods. In fact behavior intervention plans in IEP's call for restraint (the right way) before it escalates.

[rstewart]

Has anyone ever heard of a paddle?

A good ass busting would go a LONG way towards stopping this type of activity.

[Warkitty]

Or towards making it worse. Kids that already have an aggression problem have been shown to get MORE aggressive when paddled, not more tractable.

[Half-Tard]

We've got to stop the single parent households mainly baby daddies splitting. That is the root of a majority of problems with youth. Pull out dudes put that man paste on her tits..

[LimitedRecourse]

Once law enforcement is called and witnesses illegal activity, if the offense committed calls for an arrest the suspect is handcuffed....period.

If an officer transports ANYONE in the back of a patrol car, the passenger is FRISKED and HANDCUFFED if officer safety may be an issue. Period.

If you call a police officer to handle a school problem, then you should expect a police response. If you don't want a police-type response, handle the problem yourself.

[TNBear]

I certainly see how an officer might be concerned about his/her safety while transporting a six year old girl. Oh no, wait, I don't.

I really do not understand in the least why no teacher or administrator in the school was not trained on proper procedure in this type of situation.

[LimitedRecourse]

If a child is so out of control that she has completely torn up a classroom, knocked over furniture ONTO a teacher and then assaulted a principal, you think leaving her un-handcuffed to tantrum around the back of a moving patrol car is a GOOD idea?

You probably also see no problem with allowing pets to ride in a driver's lap while traveling 30-85 miles per hour in traffic.

[Half-Tard]

If a child is so out of control that she has completely torn up a classroom, knocked over furniture ONTO a teacher and then assaulted a principal, you think leaving her un-handcuffed to tantrum around the back of a moving patrol car is a GOOD idea?

The actual better idea hire some men to be police officers apparently we have a bunch of wussies.

[osrb]

How about they just shoot them with a tranquilizer that would solve the problem. Ace you have no clue. The cops should have just let her keep going or they should have just piled up on top of her. That was their only choices. The cops and administrators where dammed if they did and dammed if they did not. It was a no win situation.

[LimitedRecourse]

"The actual better idea hire some men to be police officers apparently we have a bunch of wussies."

Says the he-man from behind his computer.