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Handcuffs in Hallways: Hundreds of elementary students arrested at U.S. schools

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hundreds-of-elementary-students-arrested-at-us-schools/

Black children and kids with disabilities were disproportionately impacted, according to CBS News analysis of Education Department data.

"Don't make a wrong move," the officer said as he pinned the struggling subject to the ground. "Period."

The officer tightened the handcuffs around the subject's thin wrists.

"Ow, ow, ow, it really hurts," the subject exclaimed.

The officer pressed his weight into the subject's small body while school staff watched it all unfold. The person he was restraining was 7 years old.

39 comments

LadyAutumn

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"If you, my friend, are not acquainted with the juvenile justice system, you will be very shortly," the officer told the child. Earlier that day, the child allegedly spit at a teacher. Now, he was in handcuffs and a police officer was saying he could end up in jail. That child — a second grader with autism at a North Carolina school — was ultimately pinned on the floor for 38 minutes, according to body camera video of the incident. At one point, court records say, the officer put his knee in the child's back.

Jesus christ that is so fucking disgusting. What kind of line is that? Does he think he's in a movie or something? Cops literally live in an alternate reality where they're some kind of action heros or something as they physically assault second graders with autism and threaten them with institutionalization.

Passerby6497

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Cops are bullies who get off on shit like this.

octopus_ink

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Now, he was in handcuffs and a police officer was saying he could end up in jail. That child — a second grader with autism at a North Carolina school — was ultimately pinned on the floor for 38 minutes, according to body camera video of the incident. At one point, court records say, the officer put his knee in the child’s back.

If that was my child, the rest of my days would be spent in pursuit of consequences for that policeman.

SupraMario

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On extreme to another. Teachers have no control over the class anymore because of kids that just do whatever they want, so now we're to the other extreme... police arresting a 7 year old kid.

LadyAutumn

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It would sure help a lot if we would sufficiently fund education programs so that class sizes weren't massive and teachers weren't wildly overstretched. Children are the same as they always have been, plus a little early life trauma from the pandemic and the rising cost of living crisis.

UnderpantsWeevil

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Children are the same as they always have been

Arguably more docile and broken than ever before, given the current administrative policies. Kids used to do all sorts of crazy shit. Now everyone is terrified in to obedience from day one.

But its never enough. We whip kids until they spit at us, and then we cage them or shoot them.

SupraMario

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Kids are being raised by kids more than ever(and I don't mean age wise) I %100 agree we need more teachers, better pay for them, and smaller class sizes, but we are at the other extreme.

radicalautonomy

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I've been teaching in Title I schools...elementary, middle, and high school...where about 70% of students come from low-income households for twenty years. Not only are you dead wrong, your prejudice is showing.

SupraMario

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Where the fuck did I say anything about race or income? You're the one that brought that up. Get off your high horse; our test scores, no child left behind, stagnant and low teacher pay, large class sizes and admins who don't stand up to parents and toss the teachers under the bus have caused this...race and income have nothing to do with it.

radicalautonomy

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"Kids are being raised by kids" is shorthand for "poor, inner city students". Don't feign ignorance. You knew very well your implication.

SupraMario

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Wow way to read into shit that isn't there. Go find some other bullshit grenade to fall on. Nothing I said had anything to do with just the inner city. I literally even said that it's all schools, rural, inner city, rich or poor, they all are having the same issue....but holy fuck are you some ignorant shit if your incapable of understanding how bad our schools are right now....and even funnier that you search for racism/classism that isnt there.

UnderpantsWeevil

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Teachers have no control over the class anymore

Increased class sizes. Reduced funding. More obnoxious administrative interference. Standardized test after standardized test.

But hey, maybe its the kids' fault.

Incidentally, the Superindendent of HISD just fired all the janitors in the district. So now that's on the teachers' heads too.

Kid_Thunder

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The officer's excuse is that he only had the training he had to rely on. Putting his knee into the 7 year old's back and trying to scare the shit out of him saying that he's going to get familiar with the juvenile system, etc. etc. Being an overall piece of absolute shit and he's just essentially cowardly blaming his training.

If you need training on how not to be human garbage to a 7 year old then you surely shouldn't be an officer. That officer needs some serious psychological help.

Adalast

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What gets me is that spitting on someone is not a criminal violation in most states as far as I know. The supreme court has long held that a police officer's only responsibility is to enforce the law, not protect or serve. In this case, there was no legal infraction so he should have just sat there eating his donuts and arresting active shooters after they finish.

nahuse

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Permanently Deleted

UnderpantsWeevil

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Putting his knee into the 7 year old’s back and trying to scare the shit out of him saying that he’s going to get familiar with the juvenile system, etc. etc.

Nothing settles a child like ratcheting up anxiety with every tool at your disposal.

Also, can we take a minute to appreciate a police officer threatening a 7-year-old with the implication of sexual assault? Nothing more American than raping a child.

riodoro1

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„Finally a person I can tackle”

This cop

brygphilomena

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I would have had a hard time restraining myself if I walked into a room with my child handcuffed for spitting.

What a fucking failure of a person to blame their training as the reason they assaulted, bullied, and threatened a seven year old. You don't need training to know that it's wrong.

Furthermore, what the fuck is the point of a SRO in schools in the first place? Especially in a fucking elementary school! We know they don't stop shooters.

octopus_ink

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jordanlund

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Ah yes, the "School to Prison Pipeline".

https://www.aclu.org/documents/what-school-prison-pipeline

DoctorButts

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Pretty long article, talks about the problem at length. Worth a read.

Some points:

Atlanta Public Schools police department as an example where student arrests were high until 2018, when they course corrected: "They trained their SROs to focus on helping students to reach graduation, rather than making arrests." Mentions elsewhere in article: "Ron Applin, chief of police for Atlanta Public Schools, says they've never arrested an elementary school child in his six years running the department."
Virginia as having a statewide problem where their elementary student arrest rate is absurdly high (sad lol???) : "Virginia has taken a different approach. Schools there arrested kids in elementary schools at five times the rate for the U.S. overall during the 2017-2018 school year, according to CBS News' analysis of Education Department data."
Points out that low-income students, students of color, and students with disability are the most at risk for being arrested.
Points out the perspective of SROs (school resource officers) have toward their students is dependent on their economic status:

SROs who worked with low-income students and students of color "define the threat as students themselves," Kupchik (sociology and criminal justice professor at University of Delaware) said. "Whereas the SROs who work in wealthier, whiter school areas define the threat as something external that can happen to the children."

"It's an external threat for the more privileged kids," Kupchik said. "As opposed to students in the schools with more students of color, low-income students, where they're seen as the threats themselves."

Provides an example of the response from the federal government: "The U.S. Department of Education issued new guidance on school discipline in July, requiring school officials to evaluate a student with disabilities before disciplining them."
Provides an example of the response from a local government: "On Thursday, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, from Houston, introduced a resolution to encourage local and state governments to prohibit the physical restraining of elementary school-age children."
Article questions whether SROs even make schools safer: "There is some disagreement [among experts]," Kupchik said. "There have been some studies showing that police officers in schools can prevent some crime and misbehavior, but there are far greater numbers of studies finding the opposite, that they either have no impact or in some cases can increase crime. What they do all show consistently is that while we're not sure about any benefits, there are clear and consistent problems with putting police in schools."
Article closes out by talking about not only the negative impact of police actions themselves and the trauma it inflicts in the moment, but the potential future effects of said trauma: "The father of one child told CBS News Colorado his child, who was arrested at age 5 and had documented disabilities, "regressed significantly" after the incident and even had to move to a residential treatment facility to receive more intensive care."

oxideseven

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I'm honestly kind of confused. Elementary school arrests are very high, but in my mind I just assumed they were zero... Why wouldn't they be zero?! These are little children. I'm honestly curious what extreme circumstances could lead to needing to arrest a child?

I'm Canadian, and I remember fights in elementary, and even some combative kids fighting teachers or the principle trying to break them up. I don't recall a single police officer ever being called.

Maybe I'm just naive, but I'm legitimately baffled by this.

DoctorButts

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Reading this whole article was a mindfuck for me. I don't have kids, so current school conditions aren't something I think about ever.

The last time I was plugged into this discussion, the talk was about how more and more schools even had a single SRO and how they were being relied upon for disciplinary actions and physical handling of students because school districts were so afraid of being sued if a teacher got involved.

In the time since, it seems that this ceased to even be a discussion as it has become accepted and normal in American schools, at least outside of Atlanta. As extra wtf, note that in the last bullet point of my original comment it mentions a 5 year old got arrested... because that is normal, right?????

JackieChanwtf.jpg

DoucheBagMcSwag

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It's to get used to children to be subservient to the upcoming Police state.

Dasus

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"Upcoming"...?

fox2263

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And on today’s episode of “WTF America”…

Phegan

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Cops were added to schools to stop shootings. All they do is accelerate the school to prison pipeline.

FenrirIII

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The judges in these courts need to be audited.

Dorkyd68

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Jfc. What the ever loving fuck. These cops and that one school administrator need correcting. I wish we could bring back public shaming and light stoning. Oh you wanna bully kids? Well we gonna put you on blast and throw stones at you cause you're a prick

hanrahan

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A few bad apples SMH

UnderpantsWeevil

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The Texas School to Prison Pipeline

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a combination of (i) school disciplinary actions that remove students from their regular classrooms, such as suspensions, expulsions and alternative school placements, and (ii) the criminalization of student misbehavior, leading to school-based arrests and ticketing, that push Texas students—particularly students of color and special education students—out of Texas’ schools, decreasing their chances of graduating and increasing their chances of entering the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems

StrawberryPigtails

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I remember reading this when it was first published a year and a half ago. It incites just as much rage in me today as it did then.

There are many good cops, and I’ve met quite a few of them over the years. Sometimes in a diner where we’ve shared a coffee and told each other tall tales. Sometimes when I done fucked up. But shit like this, the protests more recently, and all the dirty kills declared clean shoots are why I consider any cop I don’t know personally, a threat. The Cult of the Thin Blue Line needs to clean their shit up.

I was raised to respect and look up to law enforcement. They were who I was taught to go to when there was trouble and I didn’t know what to do. Now, more and more, I find myself agreeing with NWA.

BigMacHole

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The problem is we don't pay cops MORE MONEY so they can get proper training of how NOT to Physically Assault little children!

skeezix

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The problem is the pool of humans from which cops are drawn: trade school burnouts, fucked up vets, 2nd amendment gun nuts, right wingers, high school drop outs, power hungry beta males, people too stupid to get an advanced degree or learn a trade.

Add in the industry's secrecy and closed nature.

You can't train your way out of that.

PP_BOY_

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Honestly I think we should just send all cops in the US to death camps and start from scratch with a force of like 1/8th the current size. There would invariably be some "good one" caught in the mix, but it would be for the best.

DesolateMood

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Who let the hexbear out

snooggums

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The police forces that employ them are the ones providing the training on how to assault little children.

sik0fewl

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I'm guilty for insisting that it's good to learn life lessons at a young age.

GeneralVincent

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I agree, it's good to learn life lessons at a young age. Not sure what that has to do with the article about giving a 7 year with autism PTSD after being pinned to the ground by an adult for half an hour.

Westcoastdg

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You're allowed to be an authoritarian, just keep your boot licking to yourself, children shouldn't be victimized for your ideological beliefs

Kiernian

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With proper, consistent, non-extreme consequences to poor choices at home, children can usually extrapolate without the need for the application of "serious" punishments.

That whole "scared into good behaviour" thing is bullshit punishment escalation that's typically only deemed "necessary" when the "discipline" situation at home is random, inequal, unjust, and therefore difficult to understand as a framework in life from the ages where such behavioural patterns are formed.

That's not to say some people won't continue to make poor choices anyway, but scarring children emotionally isn't an appropriate "solution" to that.

One-on-one individualized attention coupled with understanding and empathy is the thing to start with there.