What is wrong with these people? FOLLOWUP

Last night, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" was interviewing a former state trooper of Florida, Ric Robinson. The subject was the handcuffing and arrest of the 5 year old in St. Petersburg. This man actually said that grabbing the quiet child out of a chair by 3 officers and handcuffing her and throwing her in the back of the cruiser was for the child's best interest and safety. I came close to pulling an Elvis and shooting out my TV screen as I watched.

First of all, we are talking about a 5 year old. This guy kept saying that she had to be arrested because she was guilty of assault and battery, of being as aggresive as a street fighter. In rewatching the video, what I saw was a little girl, maybe 40 pounds, being egged on by Ms. Teacher, close to 300 lbs. If you watch closely, you will see that the teacher, instead of calming the child, was doing everything to cause more frustration in a child who had already lost her cool. Five year old's are still babies emotionally. An adult cannot reason with a five year old who is in the midst of a tantrum. And believe me, 5 year olds are very tantrum prone. But even though reasoning isn't the answer, neither is handcuffing and charging a 5 year old with assault the answer. This child had calmed down, her mother had been called and said she would get there as soon as she was able.

My daughter is a school administrator in Florida, she also wears a second hat at her school as the Director of Before & After Care. She deals with a couple hundred 5, 6 and 7 year olds in the Before & After Care program. She was appalled at what took place at the St. Petersburg school and thinks the whole lot of them should be fired and never allowed to work with children again. Her first question was, "why didn't they do what they were supposed to do, call in the counselor?"

I am not so angry at the teacher as she was in the midst of trouble and apparently lost her cool too. I fault the principal and those police officers. It turns out there were actually 4 officers, one off camera, a training officer directing the others. In my opinion, they all should lose their jobs just because of their own stupidity, if not for a myriad of other reasons. And the guy above, "Ric," needs to have his head examined. What happened to that child will stay with her probably for the rest of her life. Does anyone seriously believe a 5 year old was better off manhandled and cuffed than if they had talked to her gently, kept her calm until Mom arrived and then let her go home and take an obviously much needed nap? A little common sense here would have gone a long way.

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COMMENTS FROM SQUIGGLER BRAVEBLOG POST:

Posted by Andy:

just thought that you might want to know that when viewing your site through blog explosion your graphics don't all show up during the 20 second timer.

Tuesday the 26th of April 2005 @ 12:58 PM

Posted by jody:

Absolutely, my first thought in this whole case: where was the counselor? We fund them, why wasn't one used? Why did these people think that it was okay to traumatize a child like that? It doesn't matter how horrible she was acting, she is the child, they were the adults. They have no excuses. Good post.

Wednesday the 27th of April 2005 @ 2:56 PM

Posted by Ric Robinson:

I guess this means you won't be buying a copy of my book.
Take care,
Ric Robinson

Saturday the 7th of May 2005 @ 8:44 AM