Posted on 01/31/2013 8:30:46 AM PST by fractionated
A fight over $5 between Bronx school children escalated to the point where the police were called and a seven-year-old boy was arrested, handcuffed, and kept in custody for 10 hours, according to the child's family, who is threatening to sue the city for $250 million. When Wilson Reyes' mother Frances Mendez arrived at the 44th Precinct, she was shocked to see her son handcuffed to the wall. Mendez said, "My son was crying, ‘Mommy, it wasn’t me! Mommy, it wasn’t me!’ I never imagined the cops could do that to a child. We’re traumatized... Imagine how I felt seeing my son in handcuffs! It was horrible. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing."
According to the Post reporters who spoke to Mendez and took a photograph of her with the boy, the whole mess started when there was a fight over another child's $5....
The NYPD has a history of handcuffing unassuming criminal types—like the 7-year-old special ed student, the 12-year-old who doodled on her desk, and the 15-year-old who used her student Metrocard.
(Excerpt) Read more at gothamist.com ...
Because this is Bloomburqa and his Thugastan NYC....The $250 million lawsuit does not seem so excessive....especially if this child did not steal the $5 dollars
Unions don't let their members cross into other union's practice areas!
Yes, jobs need to be lost over this one.
Sue for $250 million...quietly settle for $3 million...the lawyer gets a million for ten hours of work and the family gets $2 million for crack and weed.
It’s not a union thing. I was a LEO for 30 years and the school system dumped more and more issues they handled in the past on the PD. My PD didn’t belong to a union either. They don’t want to deal with parents and the threats of lawsuits or other retaliations so they call the cops. The cops have to respond to calls for service. If the cops fail to take action the school complains and when they do take action the parents complain. Most public schools, at least in the area where I worked, didn’t even want cops on their campuses until an issue like this arose where they were more than happy to dump it on the police. These cops were flat out wrong if they did what they were accused of. I’m not making excuses for their actions but this type of issue was always in the past handled by the parents and school. There is absolutely nothing the police can do in this situation based on the age of the children involved.
From what I understand, teachers aren’t allowed to touch students any more, lest they get sued. That’s why you hear about cops being called when stufents are violent or unruly. The cops’ side of this story is that the little angel had been bullying the kid and was trying to shake him down for the $5.
Why it took the school six hours to call the cops (if it did take that long), and why it took the mother ten hours to get there (if it did), are unanswered questions.
“and why it took the mother ten hours to get there (if it did),”
Personal experience with New York State BCI/Troop F State Troopers, they grab you and don’t tell your family for 13 hours.
1990, Sunday April 29 they did that to my brother.
Nevermind that he didn’t do what they accused him of, not teh point of this.
The point was, they probably grabbed the kid and didn’t tell the mom.
As for the school, school admins tends to be stupid, lazy, dissembling, and indecisive.
It probably took them six hours to decide they were going to do that.
I’d be surprised if the $5 even existed to begin with.
Saw an instance where a kid thought he was going to score a free fiver by claiming that he’d lost his and someone else picked it up.
*shrugs*
Dunno what to believe with this.
But then again, I’m admittedly cynical.
Your absolutely correct about teachers not being allowed touch students. It’s immediately dumped on the police. The fact that the police interrogated a 7 year old for hours over a missing $5.00 and a case of bullying is ridiculous. The cops should have referred the incident back to the school and the parents of the children involved. They could have also referred the incident to the youth division to follow up at later time if they felt it necessary.
I also forgot to mention that in N.Y. you cannot interrogate a juvenile unless a parent or guardian is present.
Name, grade, and cereal preference. That's all they ever got out of me when I was a seven-year-old student.
Hey just be glad the kid wasn’t walking a dog when arrested.
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