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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.  [b]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.  [/b]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.
[/quote]

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”.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

There is resistance to le in elementary schools because they abuse the kids. Statistics show younger kids are LESS safe because of these exact situations. [b]The school should never have allowed this[/b]. This is the reason we do not need police in elementary schools and this type of stuff happens all the time. There are so many documented cases of police going out of bounds on elementary aged kids even when school staff ask them to stop and let them handle the situation. Special Ed teachers should know how to handle this. I would absolutely sue this school for sharing private information. This case is outrageous and I can't believe adults here are not outraged. [/quote]

One of the many questions that we don't have answers for is how much of this abuse happened in front of school staff.

If the child eloped, and if MCPS policy still dictates that staff can't stop a child and cannot retrieve them from off school grounds, then the school's hands were tied in terms of involving the police. So, for that piece I think the problem is the MCPS policy, not the school staff. It's also unclear how much of the 50-minute ordeal happened at the school, and how much happened offsite.

However, if school staff witnessed the abuse (as reported) and if they shared student information (as reported), then it's a huge issue. At absolute best, the front office staff need bystander training on how to deescalate a situation and information on what can and cannot be shared with law enforcement. At worst, school staff were complicit in the abuse of a young child. That's the piece that the school community, and the broader community, will need to seek answers on.

The vaaaast majority of the fault here, though. lies with Montgomery County PD. The school staff should never have been put in the position of trying to figure out how to deescalate two angry, abusive, and armed police officers. We don't pay school secretaries nearly enough to deal with that. [/quote]

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