APS superintendent says handcuffing boy, 7, was inappropriate

The Albuquerque Public Schools superintendent is speaking out after a seven-year-old autistic boy was handcuffed at school.

Maria Quesada spoke with KOB Eyewitness News 4 Monday night and said she was outraged to find her son cuffed at school.

According to APS police documents, the boy was out of control and unplugging cords from outlets, throwing chairs and kicking a teacher and a police officer at Mary Ann Binford Elementary School.

Quesada said she does not think the 4-foot tall, 50-pound boy deserved to be handcuffed.

Superintendent Winston Brooks spoke Wednesday afternoon, weighing in on the situation.

"Under absolutely no circumstances it is appropriate to handcuff an elementary aged child in this school district. Period," Brooks stated.

I have a 5 year old in a class with a special needs child & a special needs 3 year old daughter at home. I will tell you FROM A CONSERVATIVE PARENT it is work dealing with a special needs child but we accept that she can not have free reign over anyplace she is at because she can’t always make good choices (one reason they are called special needs!)
But I am extremely unhappy that my son is forced to tolerate a violent & disruptive special needs child in his class. My son has been spit on, kicked & hit by this child and so have other kids. His teacher told us that the special needs child “has every right to be in the class & the school is working on how to make it work”.
We would not expect our daughter to be in a class that she was causing harm to other children and/or disrupting the education of other children.

The boy is 7 years old. He probably weighs about 50 lbs. If you need handcuffs to control a 7 year old boy, you don’t belong in law enforcement. Most officers show more restraint with 200 lb. thugs, not to mention OWS weirdos.

Heck, I guess he should be glad they didn’t taser the tot.

The mother may or may not enable the boy’s bad behavior. We don’t have enough information to know. She may well be a part of our national problem of adults no longer knowing how to keep children under control, but there is no doubt the police officer who felt the need to handcuff the “dangerous” 7 year old child is.

In my day a real cop could grunt a command at a child (and most adults) and get them to comply with no force at all. Too many (but certainly not all) modern cops have lost that ability to command respect and project an air of being in control.

I blame poor training, forced “diversity” at the expense of competence and fitness for law enforcement, bogus “brutality” lawsuits, and more recently, tasers being used in place of taking psychological command over a situation.

“In my day a real cop could grunt a command at a child (and most adults) and get them to comply with no force at all. Too many (but certainly not all) modern cops have lost that ability to command respect and project an air of being in control.”

Even twenty years ago, children had a better understanding of the societal rule that police, teachers and parents were to be respected and obeyed. Moreover, parents were more likely to discipline their children at home and not take the “Billy is a victim of MEEEEEAAAAAN adults” approach.

In public elementary schools today, there is not the discipline of even FIVE years ago, much less twenty or fifty years ago. Thank liberal parents and lawsuits for that, for demanding the removal of effective punishments (even corporal punishments) from the schools.

This seven year old challenged the authority of his teacher and a police officer. He discovered that there is a consequence for that behavior. Had he behaved the same way twenty years ago, he would have been held down and paddled. Unfortunately, the liberals consider that cruel and unusual punishment. There was a time when the teacher would have pulled out a whip to whip him for disturbing the class (even BEFORE any desks were turned over).

In this scenario, Little Mijo is on a rampage, throwing desks and attacking adults. The other seven year olds are undoubtedly frightened and the adults are doing what they can, in our lawsuit crazy era, to get him controlled without losing their jobs.

Mommy Dearest previously gave the school *permission* to restrain him. Now that the school (heaven forbid!) acted on a discipline route that she *permitted them to choose if the situation warranted it*, she is outraged.

This is a kid who made bad choices and had his hands handcuffed behind his back as a result. He wasn’t beaten until his buttocks were bloodied and bruised, as might have been the case twenty years ago. He wasn’t horsewhipped, as he would have been 100 years ago. His hands were put in handcuffs, the handcuff marks received due to his attempts to escape the cuffs (and potentially, continue the assaults).

He challenged his authority figures. They responded to the challenge.

Yes, autistic children do decide to attack others.

“In kids with autism, aggressive behavior is often used as a way to get attention, obtain something that they want, or get out of doing something that they don’t want to do. And some kids act aggressively merely because they find pleasure in acting that way and watching others’ reactions to their behavior. “

http://www.everydayhealth.com/autism/managing-aggression-in-kids.aspx

You know, one might almost call this list of reasons “character flaws”. Amazing. Autistic kids have those too.

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