That's just wrong.
And why did it take 3 of them to hand cuff a 5 year old??

I've seen this before. They didn't really arrest her, this little girl is rather abusive to her family and classmates so her mother called the police to do a fake arrest to show the consequences of her actions since discipline and therapy wouldn't work.

I could see some kids needing a real world lesson to teach real world consequences. Life isn't all time outs and positive rewarding.

No, that's not exactly what happened.

Story

Oops, I was thinking of a different story that happened in Seattle last awhile back, similar video.

Good call.

Well, two of the officers I can't really blame in this case, since they are trainee's. But the other two should be reprimanded for making such an idiotic decision.

that doesn't explain the situation it just talks about how they handcuffed her.

In this instance, the opportunity to find a "better way" had long passed. Did the teachers and principal have to stand by idly and watch the tantrum and destruction until the child finished and THEN evaluate her and see if she needed to be in a different class? There was a problem, a serious problem going down. What about the psychological effect on the other children? There is no reason that they had to be exposed to the unacceptable behavior of this spoiled brat.

Teachers and other school personnel are so frightened of what might happen to them if they so much as touch a child or talk to them in some form of "the wrong way", that they are helpless. They were right to call the police and the police were right to subdue the child by whatever means they found necessary. She committed vandalism and assault. If this were a 18-year-old in high school, they would have most certainly done what they did – and hauled that person off and arrested him/her and booked him/her and put him/her in a cell! Why should this extreme behavior be treated in any different way? Would it have been acceptable if the kid were 16? How about 12? Maybe 9? It is all the same. The child is capable of knowing right from wrong and she was told what was "right" by an authority figure who she in turn punched.

One cop could have easily cuffed the kid but (IMHO) they wanted to make sure they didn’t hurt her so they tried to hold her as gently as possible and bending her over a table kept her from hurting herself. They needed to remove her from the classroom and the school and if they had not cuffed her she would have hurt herself and other kids as they tried to move her.

If you noticed what she said it was, “No, I don’t want to” when they started to cuff her. I think this is the reaction of a child who uses this phrase a lot, because it works. It wasn’t “you’re hurting me”… This kid has a serious behavior problem which was brought up before and the mother has the gall to say something like “it was really just a personality conflict between the child and the assistant principal”. Ain’t that too bad! I call that “personality conflict”, 5th degree assault.Gee, I think the same applies to the behavior of the child!. It seems to me that she has not yet “had to pay” for her actions and I think that is what this was all about. Send her to a juvenile detention center for 6 months.

Boy, you sure know what goes in childrens mindsets do you ? Degree in childpsychology ?

Children are children, they are not adults. Stop pretending that children are equal to adults because they are not. They are weaker and do not understand the full extent of there actions. And that becomes even stronger when the child is younger.

Thinking that if a child knows right from wrong does not automatically mean they know exactly what they did wrong.

And as for as this situation goes, you do not have the full facts to call this kid "spoiled brat".

"I don't want to" is said by ALL children when they don't want to.

In this case, Sfeldner was right in calling this kid a spoiled brat.

My niece attended Fairmount Park and was a year ahead of this girl when the incident happened. She told me everyone in her classroom was terrified of this kid. These are older kids in another room so I can only imagine the havoc she wreaked in her own classroom.

My SIL told me the school met with all the parents to discuss the incident. They were told the school had been following appropriate disciplinary actions for many months and certainly did not intend for the child to be cuffed and arrested. When a child acts out so aggressively and uncontrollably, the parents and then the authorities are called. They were expecting social services but it was the police that showed up.

SIL also said, in talking with other parents (this did not come from the school), that the mother would never come to the school to discuss the problems her daughter was having and basically said her daughter was the school's problem to deal with. Nice.

So once again, I think the issue comes down to crappy parenting. Here we have a neglected child that probably would have anger issues even in a healthy household, and the more she acted out, the more attention she got at school - which was the ONLY place she received attention.

The whole situation is just sad. I feel for the school, the girl, the witnesses, and the police who were portrayed as brutes when they were just making a judgement call on an already impossible situation.

The mother, however, can rot as far as I'm concerned.

IMHO...


update: Two weeks after this incident, another kindergartner from Fairmount wandered off campus and was hit by a bus. Niece was put in private school the next week.

So, you tell me what, exactly, are the teachers supposed to do? Stand there? Clear the classroom? Let the kid go on and on? Then, what, exactly, should the police do? Say, "oh well, kids will be kids"? Bulls**t! Children are taught from day one that violence is "WRONG". You show me one parent who hasn't taught their kid that hitting someone, especially a authority figure, is right and I will show you one sick parent.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's going on with this kid, it just takes a parent! And as far as not having the facts to call this kid a spoiled brat, you don't have the facts to NOT call her a spoiled brat. You do, however, have the facts to tell you that the kid committed assault - she punched the assistant principal! Assault is assault - the law doesn't draw a line on which one side it is okay to punch someone. The law only limits the consequences. The assistant principal is well within his/her right to sue the parents!

I wrote what I think so you go and write what you think and don't tell me what I know and don't know and don't insult my intelligence by assuming my education or qualifications!

The teachers have the authority to remove the child themselves from the classroom when misbehaving, no need for cops. Arresting her is WAY overline. What happened to the old "Sending the kid to the principals office" ? I think teachers still have such authority.
Being scared for lawsuits is cowardice, a judge will not rule against them.

And guess what ? They did get sued even so.

What ? Is it mandatory to call a kid a brat ?

Assault ? IT IS A FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD !!
How the hell is that assault ? Such a young child couldn't dent a pack of melting butter. Kids throw tantrems, but that does not equal assault.

Now if I did that, THAT would've been assault.

Well, you haven't shown any evidence that you do.
Even if you have the education or qualification, your judgement is not very well thought in this case.

I agree that sometimes real world lessons are the key... but think that applies to older kids (teens). A 5-year-old just doesn't have the capacity to connect hitting and screaming to jail time, or even understand what jail really is.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the one who needs a real world lesson is the mother. Show her what happens to crappy parents - take the kid from her or force her to get some family counseling so everyone can get the help they so obviously need.

There is another possiblity beyond the girl being a spoiled brat. She could well be a budding sociopath.

It sounds like they did, and she punched the assisstant principal!

The severity of injury doesn't determine whether or not it is assault.

In my oppinion, she should definitely be tried as a juvenile and given some sort of juvenile detention for a couple months. In my oppinon, the longer we can keep a budding sociopath away from the general population the better.

ahahah... gotta play nice on this playground.

disagree, yes.
insult, no.

I agree that she sounds like a sociopath-in-the-making, but a five year old in Juvie? I think that would be dangerous to the little beast - she'd get killed! (which may, in the long run, be a good thing if she were to grow up to be a psycho - but still)

~Just another opinion being thrown out here, Ice:

I'm by no means a child psycologist but what if she were taken from her family and put with people who would discipline her, teach her WHY she should behave (not just what happens if she doesn't) and show her that positive attention is what she wants, not just any attention.

ORRR - just smack her around, make her life hell for awhile, and teach her that if she's going to be a bully she needs to do it in a way that she won't get caught.

My brother was horrified of the principal. So whenever he'd 'act out' he'd go see the principal.

But, he had Downs Syndrome and this was in Kentucky and the special ed program was awful. They didn't know how to work with him. And they can all rot in hell.

But, what I'm getting at is, maybe calling the police in would have been enough to scare her into behaving. Maybe not. I obviously don't know the situation well enough to say. But maybe calling the police in to scare her would have been enough, and arresting her was going over the line and scarring her for life. But, maybe not.

Just my 2c.

I don't think it would scar her for life, scare maybe, but I doubt it would create any trama.