A Stone Mountain, Ga., mother is demanding better training at her 6-year-old son’s elementary school after she found him handcuffed for misbehaving, 11 Alive reports.
“My husband got a call that something was going on with Patrick at school, and they needed us to come,” Lakaisha Reid told the news station. “We go into the school and a gentleman takes us back. I hear my son yelling, he’s screaming.”
The first-grader was behaving in a disruptive manner, which resulted in a Pine Ridge Elementary School resource officer placing the boy in handcuffs, school officials said, according to 11 Alive.
According to a statement from the DeKalb County School District, reviewed by 11 Alive:
A 6-year-old student at Pine Ridge Elementary School was acting in a disruptive manner and being self-destructive during [the] school today. He ran out of school onto a busy, public street and was pursued by three school staff members. The student was secured and returned to the school and placed in a room with a special education teacher, the school counselor and the school resource officer (SRO) to protect him from doing harm to himself. After several unsuccessful attempts, his parents were contacted and asked to come immediately to the school. For approximately one hour, the student was scratching, kicking and hitting school personnel and continued to exhibit violent behavior, running into walls, banging his head on tables and placing his health at risk. At this point, the SRO placed handcuffs on the student to protect him from harming himself. When the parents arrived, they were told the student was handcuffed for his personal safety.
However, Reid found the actions of the school to be deeply disturbing, and took photos of the bruises left on her son’s wrist from the incident.
“It hurts when I touch it right there,” Patrick told 11 Alive, gesturing to his wrists.
“He just ran away from school. It does not require handcuffs,” the angry mother insisted. “He’s a 6-year-old kid. I don’t think that that was the appropriate way of dealing with that.
“They need to have police officers that are trained for special-need kids or for any kids that are that age. That’s pretty young for handcuffs already. Anything could happen with those handcuffs on him,” Reid added.
The mother had no plans to send her child back to school Monday, 11 Alive reports.
Read more at 11 Alive.