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12-Year-Old with Special Needs Assaulted & Handcuffed by School Resource Officer (VIDEO)
According to WRIC.com:
HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) – Disturbing security camera footage shows a school resource officer in Henrico County tackling then handcuffing a 12-year-old boy who has special needs.
The officer can be seen pinning down the struggling boy for more than 5 minutes before two additional officers arrive to escort Lamarion Crawley away.
The seventh grader told 8News things have gone back to normal at Moody Middle School. His mother, Lateisha Green said the officer is no longer there, but added that she believes that is not enough.
Crawley is slight, quiet, and weighs less than 100 pounds. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he said he’d like to be a football player. The security video shows the student getting tackled, cuffed and held down like an adult suspect on March 21.
“The people that are responsible should be able to stand up and say this was wrong,” Green said.
Crawley has mild autism and other learning disabilities. Green said she was told her son became upset after his computer was taken away at school. The security footage obtained by 8News begins with Crawley walking outside the building and beginning to throw twigs before being confronted by administrators, then the officer.
“No child should have to go through being dealt with that way at school.” — Lateisha Green
“No child should have to go through being dealt with that way at school,” Green said, telling 8News that she met with administrators on March 31 about the excessive use of force. “The principal said I’m sorry and talked about, ‘where do we go from here.’”
Green said the unnamed officer has been reassigned to a different school, but that she wants him off the job.
“Honestly I don’t think (reassignment is) enough, because Lamarion was injured, and he’s still hurt,” she told 8News, claiming her son has battled persistent back pain since the incident.
School officials have remained tight-lipped about the confrontation.
In a statement, Henrico County Public Schools spokesman Andy Jenks said,
“We continue to work directly with the student and his family in order to determine all of the facts and address the concerns that were shared with us. We are unable to provide information regarding the school division’s work to address the stated concerns due to protections that are afforded to students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).”
One question Green said no one seems able to answer, is why the officer took things so far.
“The principal said, ‘I don’t know what was going through his mind.’ No one is able to answer that question as to what he was thinking at that moment to handle (Lamarion) that way.”
Every single school in the country has a police officer present in them these day. What those officers don’t have is proper training and compassion towards those with special needs. And let’s not kid ourselves, they don’t have proper training for young adults without special needs. This is not the first time a police officer has used tactics used for more violent adults on less violent kids. Parents need to be very concerned about the police officers that stalk the school hallways. They are nothing more than bullies just waiting to bully.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
12-Year-Old with Special Needs Assaulted & Handcuffed by School Resource Officer (VIDEO) is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights
Source: http://www.copblock.org/172443/12-year-old-with-special-needs-assaulted-handcuffed-by-school-resource-officer-video/
We need to end “mainstreaming” now. Decades ago there were separate rooms for “special Ed” students and those kids were never seen at all. Now we have to accept them into normal classes so their feelings don’t get hurt.