Going Too Far: Kids Handcuffed for Having Tantrums at School
Excessive force can do more harm than good.
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Going Too Far? - Around the country, reports of children as young as 5 years old being handcuffed by police have rocked local communities. The incidents raised questions about how restraining children with such force is really for their own safety and if schools need to do more to protect children from emotional and physical truama at school. -- Britt Middleton (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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Kalyb Primm - After he was bullied by classmates on Wednesday (April 30), Kalyb Primm, 7, was hysterical. When his teachers couldn’t calm the Kansas City second grader down, a school security officer “twisted his wrists” and put handcuffs on him before taking Kalyb to the principal’s office. By the time his father showed up to school, little Kalyb was still in restraints.(Photo: KSHB Kansas City)
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Jmyha Rickman - On March 5, police were called to Love Joy Elementary in Alton, Illinois, after 8-year-old Jmyha Rickman allegedly trashed two classrooms because she wasn't allowed to use the restroom. Police reportedly handcuffed Jmyha's hands and feet and took her to jail, where she was held for two hours. Jmyha's guardian, Neheniah Keeton, condemned the school for calling 9-1-1 because she said the little girl is autistic and suffers from separation anxiety. (Photo: KMOV)
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Wilson Reyes - On Jan. 30, the New York City Police Department was slapped with a $250 million lawsuit by the mother of 7-year-old Wilson Reyes, who was allegedly arrested and handcuffed to a rail at a police station for several hours. The child was accused of stealing $5 from a classmate, but his family says the little boy found it on the ground, according to reports. (Photo: Courtesy of Yankowitz Law Firm)
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Salecia Johnson - According to school officials in April 2012, 6-year-old Salecia Johnson threw items around a classroom and knocked over a bookcase that injured a teacher. The child from Georgia was handcuffed and taken into police custody and initially charged with simple battery of a schoolteacher and criminal damage, but those charges were later dropped. Salecia's parents initiated an online petition, which garnered 195,884 signatures, calling for the school to remove the record of arrest from the child's file and to "end the use of police for school discipline." (Photo: AP Photo/WMAZ-13 TV)
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Ja'Briel Weston - After Ja'Briel Weston talked back to his teacher in May 2010, the 6-year-old was handcuffed to a chair by an armed security officer at his New Orleans school. Two days later, after a lunchroom fight with another student, Ja'Briel was dragged down a hallway and shackled for a second time to a chair. The incident pushed the Southern Poverty Law Center to sue the school district for its disciplinary policies. In the settlement, the district agreed to stop using fixed restraints, limit the use of handcuffs in disciplinary matters and provide more training for security officers. (Photo: ABC WGNO)