Parents of autistic child restrained by Police to sue

[Quart]

Often it's a case of he said/she said. Sometimes it's the child being unreasonable, other times the child can't help themselves. It really is a variety of things.

 

[Mary Anne]

Often it's a case of he said/she said. Sometimes it's the child being unreasonable, other times the child can't help themselves. It really is a variety of things.

Of course the child having a melt down can’t always help themselves.

 

[Gritches]

What? C'mon, we should all be reasonable here. Of course the 10-year-old child who was hiding in a cubbyhole and was dragged out so he could be arbitrarily restrained is the bastard in this situation. I mean, he clearly wants to be there and is benefiting tremendously by being forced to attend a daycare for NTs. Everything about this situation is absolutely ideal, except for the behavior of that child, who clearly hasn't been traumatized enough if that's how he's acting. I mean, de-escalation techniques? We can't expect anyone to understand how to de-escalate a situation, much less the police, or the people who are legal guardians of that child for the time they're on school grounds. Noooooo, clearly the responsibility falls to a special needs child to act more normal.

How would I deal with my autistic child acting out in school? Really, I'd take them out of that den of freaking jackals posthaste, but sarcastically: mandatory daily beatings. Because nothing makes for a more well-adjusted adult than a childhood full of being subjected to psychological and physical harm at the hands of people who are 4 times your size, who you're supposed to trust and obey.

 

[Adora]

Why did I click on the comments section for that story? I knew it was just going to be all forms of hatred towards people with autism. And yet I dared hope.

Yeah I read some of comments too,its disheartening to see how people are towards those on the spectrum.

 

[OkRad]

I never knew a tissue could be construed as a deadly weapon. That is really a stretch by someone who wanted to do a little anger management of the poor child.

The reality is that people cannot be educated into compassion. The cop got mad and the kid was small. The most chilling part, "We're back to where we were the other day." That means it happened before.

One time would cause so much trauma in a child that it would take maybe a year of therapy IF he were now in a safe, gentle environment. But that this happened to him other times?

Get that kid out of there. Homeschool! I know many can't. They have to work , etc.......but ask a church to help private school costs? Sue for the money for a private school......they are doing that. The poor little kid! And he is only ten?

Now I need a tissue, too.

 

[Mary Anne]

No one here has the history or school records of this kid. You just do not know if for years he has been disruptive, violent, or whatever. I am not giving the cop a free pass, but no one can pass judgement by the little bit spread by the media.

 

[AO1501]

What we should all find disturbing is that absent real and imminent danger to the child or to others in the immediate area, no child that age, whether on the spectrum or not, should ever be placed in handcuffs by the authorities.

And sure, we don't know what this child's history might have been, but we also don't have any reason to think it contained anything to justify this reaction either. Personally I find the implication that autistic children are inherently harmful and violent as quite a long way from the truth.

The fact is that if we cannot trust the experts in de-escalation (and the police are supposed to be primarily exactly that) nobody can regard any child as being safe in any school environment.

 

[Mary Anne]

What we should all find disturbing is that absent real and imminent danger to the child or to others in the immediate area, no child that age, whether on the spectrum or not, should ever be placed in handcuffs by the authorities.

And sure, we don't know what this child's history might have been, but we also don't have any reason to think it contained anything to justify this reaction either. Personally I find the implication that autistic children are inherently harmful and violent as quite a long way from the truth.

The fact is that if we cannot trust the experts in de-escalation (and the police are supposed to be primarily exactly that) nobody can regard any child as being safe in any school environment.

My experiences and those who work with some autistic children have not been safe, manageable, and have been fraught with difficult challenges.

 

[AO1501]

My experiences and those who work with some autistic children have not been safe, manageable, and have been fraught with difficult challenges.

My experience of autistic children is that they are commonly badly treated, bullied, and punished for being on the spectrum.

I imagine the outcomes might be rather similar, but the causes perhaps not.

 

[Gritches]

Furthermore, there is nothing in this entire world more dangerous than a 10-year-old having a meltdown. You would be a fool not to put one of those in handcuffs and hold them down by their neck. I mean, who knows when he's going to rip up some tissues. We don't know this kid's history, we don't have his "school records", for all we know this kid is more dangerous than Hitler riding Godzilla.

Absolutely unacceptable. 10-year-olds having a meltdown need to be traumatized until they behave, because meltdowns are strictly a sign of bad behavior. Nah, don't leave him alone to have his meltdown, don't let him hide in a cubbyhole because he's afraid enough of his teacher, drag that little prick out and traumatize the living crap out of him.

What I'm trying to say is that since we don't know this kid's history we should probably trust the police, because they've proven themselves to be such a trustworthy institution of our society. But hey, even though I said that without directly saying it, I'm going to try to indemnify myself with the contradictory statement that I'm not giving the cops a free pass. Because that's how I roll.

 

[Ezra]

We do not ever know the entire story. Media could not report it because schools are not allowed to divulge the entire story. So even discussing it, as with any child story in the news, is not getting all the facts.

I don't get that. They were detailed about the incident, so why couldn't they divulge the entire story?

 

[Mary Terry]

Some children do not belong in mainstream public education. Parents need to take responsibility for their disabled kids and not dump them on underpaid and untrained teachers and law enforcement who owe an equal duty of care to other children adversely impacted by the autistic child's meltdowns and unacceptable behaviors. I don't condone what was done to the child in the news article based on what little we know about him and the events that happened, but I respect the rights of ALL children to be safe in an environment conducive to learning. "Safety" may include segregation from a violent or disruptive autistic child.

 

[oregano]

Why did I click on the comments section for that story? I knew it was just going to be all forms of hatred towards people with autism. And yet I dared hope.

Yes, it seems as if most NT's think we are so wild and incorrigible that there's no point in educating or employing us. Many seem to think that all we do is suck up resources-"useless eaters"-and give nothing back. Of course, this means nobody will employ us or date us because of how evil we are believed to be. A lot of NT's seem to be ready to just go ahead and dump us in the ovens, they don't even want to waste resources in gassing us first, just strap us to boards and toss us in and listen to us scream as we're roasted alive. The earth is out of resources so people are starting to turn on each other in a final desperate fight over what is left. The weak go first, then the semi weak, then the semi strong, and finally the top wolves tear each other to pieces. Definitely time to flee civilization so that we don't get caught in cities suddenly deprived of food-look at Venezuela.

 

[pamelaperejil]

This is what the school and the police claim happened, according to abc.news.

In a written summary by the Denton Independent School District, Thomas was described as engaging in self-harming behaviors and that he engaged in "physically assaultive and unsafe behaviors."

"SRO Coulston deemed handcuffs appropriate a second time in order to minimize the student's ability to harm himself or engage in acts of violence against others," according to the report.

Plausible, but... I don't know. I didn't see him come anywhere near harming others in the clip and it would have been safer to let him alone to kick and scream by himself on the floor then to try to restrain him the way that they did. Their intervention in this case seemed to aggravate the situation rather than control it.

There was apparently a similar handcuffing incident involving the child and the officer a bit earlier. It's possible that the child was violent then but... I didn't see any of this supposedly violent behavior demonstrated in the clip. They're going to release the second footage soon.

More broadly, it's certainly possible that the degree of force and restraint that was used against this child this time would have been appropriate against another autistic child in a different set of circumstances.

 

[Ezra]

This reminds me of a case from last year where a 10 year old autistic by was handcuffed and arrested for kicking a teacher. At first that sounded outrageous to me. But then the school started giving out his history of multiple calculated assaults on teachers and students. One I remember is he moved his chair in a way that the leg landed on a teacher's foot and broke 3 of her toes. Then some days later purposely stomped on her injured foot while wearing engineer type boots and said "she deserved it". So him being arrested at 10 is better than him being allowed to continue such violent behavior and end up in jail permanently as an adult imo. A scared straight type intervention.

 

[SimplyWandering]

The OP didn't say anything about assuming the child involved was violent or endangering others.

No, I didn't, but whether it's true or not, the school knew the kid had autism and that is typically discussed with a counselor/psychologist, so they should have known how to prepare for (handle) it.

"For people who say pull him out, yank him out of the school"... There are lots of public schools that have programs for autism or work with more severe ASD children and do fine, no reason to start assuming public schools can't handle it ( in this incident the school should have come forth and addressed the parents about previous incidents.)

 

[Mary Anne]

This is what the school and the police claim happened, according to abc.news.



Plausible, but... I don't know. I didn't see him come anywhere near harming others in the clip and it would have been safer to let him alone to kick and scream by himself on the floor then to try to restrain him the way that they did. Their intervention in this case seemed to aggravate the situation rather than control it.

There was apparently a similar handcuffing incident involving the child and the officer a bit earlier. It's possible that the child was violent then but... I didn't see any of this supposedly violent behavior demonstrated in the clip. They're going to release the second footage soon.

More broadly, it's certainly possible that the degree of force and restraint that was used against this child this time would have been appropriate against another autistic child in a different set of circumstances.

Do you mean to leave a child engaged in meltdown alone on the floor to repeatedly slap & punch himself in the face and head? Staff cannot allow that. There are some children that self harm. One staff person I know used to sit on the child to stop the self harm. Is this more acceptable? Probably not.

 

[Mary Anne]

I don't get that. They were detailed about the incident, so why couldn't they divulge the entire story?

Because the entire story would be the child’s entire school records, which by law would never be devulged.

 

[pamelaperejil]

Do you mean to leave a child engaged in meltdown alone on the floor to repeatedly slap & punch himself in the face and head? Staff cannot allow that. There are some children that self harm. One staff person I know used to sit on the child to stop the self harm. Is this more acceptable? Probably not.

I think the kid in the video would have been better left on the floor without interference or, better yet, left in the cubicle where he was trying to hide when all this started. I don't believe that, in this case, handcuffing and restraining him helped protect him and/or others from harm. Judging by what I saw in the video.

The harm done by intervention, in this case, seems worse than the harm of leaving him alone would have done.

For a hypothetical case? Intervention might be warranted if the child really was a danger to himself or others.

 

[Ezra]

Because the entire story would be the child’s entire school records, which by law would never be devulged.

Far as I know now that the parents are suing the school, the school has the right to tell the whole story as far as what's relevant to the case. In the other case from last year I mentioned there are now 50 documented incidences that have been presented by the school.