MC police pick up ESS 5 year old; harass & assault him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son was in a 1st grade class with a boy who would regularly walk out of class and yell at the teacher she couldn’t touch him as he kicked her shins and threw things at her. He thought it was funny to hide after recess so the teacher and playground aides had to go looking for him. He was a really smart but incredibly defiant kid and he sucked up half of the teacher’s time. His mother would blame everyone for not understanding her spirited child and complained about poor supervision. She was talking to someone at pickup and her child approached her and gave her his backpack. The mom kept talking and the boy took off. She couldn’t find him and loudly blamed the school for losing him. She posted on social media about the poor supervision but left out the fact she was at the school and he should have been under her supervision. My son learned very little that year. And neither did his classmates.

This happens more than people realize. Its very frustrating as the parents are 1/2 the problem and the child is the other 1/2. They both need help - parents with parenting and child with behavior/mental health or it only gets worse.

no, the schools are the problem for sitting on their hands and pretending that there is nothing they can do without an IEP for disruptive behavior and eloping. There is a LOT they can do, but they don’t - out of laziness or (I suspect) and institutional approach of letting the situation escalate until it creates its own solution (kid gets suspended, assigned to a contained classroom, leaves school, etc). Wash rinse and repeat until kid gets old enough to arrest, expell, or drops out.

Even with an IEP, schools only can do so much if parents don't agree. A school can fast track an IEP to get a child a specialize placement and parents can refuse the placement. We had that several times at our school where child would be better served elsewhere and parents refused. Sadly, one of the paraprofessionals was a huge gossip.

false. there are many, many evidence-based approaches to deal with behavior that do not require and IEP. And working collaboratively with parents (as opposed to blaming/accusing/diagnosing) would earn trust and cooperation.

Evidence based approaches, great... now have you tried them with students and families who will not cooperate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote out a whole long thing as an ESS parent, and then deleted it, because I don't want to share a bunch of info or engage in too much speculation. Bottom line to me is that the cops look terrible here, and the school's involvement is at least more ambiguous, possibly open to interpretation and hard to know the degree of. Could be very bad, could be much less so. I, for one, would like to know.

That said, I want to know what the dynamic is here. Assuming the boy is African American-- regardless of the race of the cops, black boys' behavior is criminalized by *everyone*. This story is deeply disturbing to me. The child was FIVE. I'll also say that those of you assuming money grubbing and lying on the part of the mom are gross to me, and yes, there is a racialized and/or class-based element to that. Cut it out.

You are automatically assuming the child's race and saying it was a race issue.

Assuming all this happened there are multiple issues involved.

There is absolutely no way that Montgomery County cops behaved this way towards a white kindergartener and we all know it.

Of course they behave this way to white people as well as other races. Just no one cares so whites would know better than to complain about it. Same with school administrators.

You have an interesting brain.

So do you. And very close-minded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote out a whole long thing as an ESS parent, and then deleted it, because I don't want to share a bunch of info or engage in too much speculation. Bottom line to me is that the cops look terrible here, and the school's involvement is at least more ambiguous, possibly open to interpretation and hard to know the degree of. Could be very bad, could be much less so. I, for one, would like to know.

That said, I want to know what the dynamic is here. Assuming the boy is African American-- regardless of the race of the cops, black boys' behavior is criminalized by *everyone*. This story is deeply disturbing to me. The child was FIVE. I'll also say that those of you assuming money grubbing and lying on the part of the mom are gross to me, and yes, there is a racialized and/or class-based element to that. Cut it out.

You are automatically assuming the child's race and saying it was a race issue.

Assuming all this happened there are multiple issues involved.

I'm not "automatically" doing anything. I said, "assuming X, then Y." That means, "if X, then Y."

But yes, this is my kid's school and I think I know this parent, the school is also half Black and almost all POC, and yes, race always comes into play. Sure there are multiple issues involved. You sound like the kind of person who only thinks two things were ever "race issues" and one happened in 1861 and the other happened in 1968.

Another ESS parent and I completely agree. Also imagine the tone this thread would have if this was a Bethesda elementary school. So much blame on a 5yr old child when the school in question is majority black. I’m disgusted TBH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

I think oppositional and defiant behavior among this age group is a lot more common than you thin. I don't condone the behavior,, I just note that this category of behavior is not uncommon for the age and I think that kids trying to leave school is a lot more common than we know. What is uncommon is how the adults reacted.

[Anonymous]

This is horrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this really confusing. It's hard to know what happened. I am always suspicious when there is just one side, especially when that side is the lawyers representing one person.

One one hand, the kid ran away from school. One of the things that the article objects to seems to be that the police picked up the kid, put him in the car and drove him back to school. To me, that's what I'd expect. The police's first job in that circumstance is definitely to get the kid back to the adults who are caring for him. Yes, being "placed in a squad car" (one of the things they object to) is scary, but I'm not sure how else they should get the child back to school

It sounds like some of the things they said while they were doing it were out of line, but honestly without the other side it's just hard to say.

I don’t understand why they are objecting to this part. The yelling and kid handcuffs are way out of line, but I take it with a grain of salt since they’re making a big deal about being “placed in a squad car”.

At one point they also object to the fact that they used the word "now" when talking to the kid, and that they asked him to sit down in the office.

Our police need way more training in dealing with people who are mentally ill, which almost certainly includes this child. What they're describing isn't OK. The words the officer used aren't OK. But this isn't a million dollar police brutality case. This is an officer with a very out of control child, who said some stupid things, while basically doing his job which was to return the kid to school.

I know there is a lot of resistance to the school resource officer program, but this is the exact type of situation in which you need officers who are specially trained to deal with particular situations. Were these just officers who were on patrol in the area and had to go pick up this kid? I work with law enforcement (not MoCo though) and this is why properly trained school resource officers and truancy officers are essential. Common sense should have dictated that those officers not act like that to a 5 year old, but there needs to be officers specially trained to deal with behavioral issues with kids that can be used in this situation.

I agree but didn't want to say it, because I don't want to act like I'm defending the cops here in any way, by detracting from the story. But SROs would be much better at this.

If these cops did what they are accused of, it's horrific. Primal screams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

Ramona Quimby did this. GMAFB

Sure most kids won't. But it's not some extreme unheard-of thing-- at least not an attempt. Maybe more things were going on, maybe it was a one-off. Regardless-- and I think you can agree-- the police officers were NOT-- according to the info we have-- reacting in any kind of normal way. A police officer who was caught off-guard and angry and just kicked in the nuts might be excused for uttering a curse word. But berating a 5 year old for almost an hour?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

These were not SROs. I think that distinction is incredibly important. They are patrol officers. And if you get rid of SROs, you'll have patrol officers responding to the schools. Most of the time that will be fine. But this incident sounds really bad.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

I think oppositional and defiant behavior among this age group is a lot more common than you thin. I don't condone the behavior,, I just note that this category of behavior is not uncommon for the age and I think that kids trying to leave school is a lot more common than we know. What is uncommon is how the adults reacted.

If its true oppositional defiant behavior kid needs mental health treatment. If its bad behavior, parents need to work with the school and handle it. This is not normal behavior to elope from school. Something more was going on. If the child felt happy and safe they wouldn't run from school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

Ramona Quimby did this. GMAFB

Sure most kids won't. But it's not some extreme unheard-of thing-- at least not an attempt. Maybe more things were going on, maybe it was a one-off. Regardless-- and I think you can agree-- the police officers were NOT-- according to the info we have-- reacting in any kind of normal way. A police officer who was caught off-guard and angry and just kicked in the nuts might be excused for uttering a curse word. But berating a 5 year old for almost an hour?

Kids who elope have more going on. None of the situation makes sense as they should have returned the child to school and left or returned the child to the parent. I'd like to see the footage. If its true, they should be terminated but the school also needs an audit too as they don't have enough safety procedures in place for this to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wrote out a whole long thing as an ESS parent, and then deleted it, because I don't want to share a bunch of info or engage in too much speculation. Bottom line to me is that the cops look terrible here, and the school's involvement is at least more ambiguous, possibly open to interpretation and hard to know the degree of. Could be very bad, could be much less so. I, for one, would like to know.

That said, I want to know what the dynamic is here. Assuming the boy is African American-- regardless of the race of the cops, black boys' behavior is criminalized by *everyone*. This story is deeply disturbing to me. The child was FIVE. I'll also say that those of you assuming money grubbing and lying on the part of the mom are gross to me, and yes, there is a racialized and/or class-based element to that. Cut it out.

You are automatically assuming the child's race and saying it was a race issue.

Assuming all this happened there are multiple issues involved.

There is absolutely no way that Montgomery County cops behaved this way towards a white kindergartener and we all know it.

Of course they behave this way to white people as well as other races. Just no one cares so whites would know better than to complain about it. Same with school administrators.

Ah, yes, white people. Famous for never complaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

They weren't SROs and you're disgusting. Just assuming no cop would ever use excessive force. Kid must have deserved it. Guess you've learned nothing from the videos we've all seen. I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened. But neither are you. At least I have Occam's Razor on my side.

By the way-- by Occam's Razor, I mean not just that cops often use excessive force, but even if they do so a minority of the time, there is bodycam footage here to back up the allegations. Yes, it hasn't been to trial, but hard to imagine the kid is kicking and screaming and biting and EVEN IF HE WAS this is the whole freakin problem with police. Mental health professionals and ER staff get spat on, attempted assaults, etc., and somehow a lot fewer of them end up threatening CHILDREN.

You belong in the locked facility you have created for this child.

The police should pick up the child and put him in the police car. That is ok. Its not ok to be verbally abusive. Lets see the footage. That will clear up a lot of problems. My bigger concern is why did this child walk off school grounds. Did the child have SN/behavioral/mental health issues or was something more going on at school or home? Kids don't normally walk out of school except if something is wrong.

Or the kid is just 5 and 5 year olds some times do irrational things for reasons neither they nor anyone else can fully comprehend.

This is not a normal behavior for a 5 year old. Something more had to be going on.

Ramona Quimby did this. GMAFB

Sure most kids won't. But it's not some extreme unheard-of thing-- at least not an attempt. Maybe more things were going on, maybe it was a one-off. Regardless-- and I think you can agree-- the police officers were NOT-- according to the info we have-- reacting in any kind of normal way. A police officer who was caught off-guard and angry and just kicked in the nuts might be excused for uttering a curse word. But berating a 5 year old for almost an hour?

Kids who elope have more going on. None of the situation makes sense as they should have returned the child to school and left or returned the child to the parent. I'd like to see the footage. If its true, they should be terminated but the school also needs an audit too as they don't have enough safety procedures in place for this to happen.

The school has known about this for a year. If it hadn't implemented more stop gaps I'd be surprised-- and upset. As an ESS parent I've never heard of anything like this happening. That doesn't mean it hasn't, but it's a small school and word gets around. That said, I want answers too! I just think there's a range of possibilities here when it comes to what school employees actually did or didn't do-- in a way that doesn't seem true of the cops, who seem at least 80% likely to have been way out of line.

[Anonymous]

Disturbing. Let's hope that fact finding is happening in a real way so that any adult is held to task for this child.

This child is in need of care and comfort. I hope that Child Services is involved and taking a hard look at home life as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. SRO’s are human and make the same mistakes as the rest of us. This kid must have resisted in every way possible, leaving the officer few options. But obviously he lost his cool and should know better. The kid belongs in a locked facility though.

you forgot to end your post with an /s.