Posted on 08/31/2004 4:09:27 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
An Espanola third-grader was handcuffed and arrested by police after hitting another student with a basketball, the child's mother and her lawyer say.
"The Legislature never envisioned that the law would be used to lock an 8-year-old in any jail, especially an adult jail," attorney Sheri Raphaelson said.
"This is the most egregious example of poor judgment by police that I've ever seen in my 15 years of practicing law," she said.
According to a juvenile citation for disorderly conduct, Jerry Trujillo was arrested Thursday and booked into the Espanola jail after he "got out of control and refused to go back to class."
Police Chief Richard Guillen, who was not at work Thursday, said he had few details but that officers "couldn't deal with" the boy before taking him into custody.
He said he had conflicting accounts of where the boy was held and for how long.
It's illegal to keep a juvenile at an adult facility.
Espanola school Superintendent Vernon Jaramillo said the incident was being investigated. He expected a report from the school's principal, Corinne Salazar.
The boy's mother, Angelica Esquibel, said he was sent to the school office Thursday when he raised his voice to a teacher after hitting another child with the basketball.
Esquibel, who works next door to the school, said she was called to the office, and that Jerry began crying and saying he wanted to go home.
She said a school counselor wanted him to return to class, and that when the boy ran outside and started crying louder, the counselor told him if he wasn't going to be in school, she was going to call police.
The counselor told him officers would handcuff him and put him in a cell "until he changes his attitude," Esquibel said.
Guillen said he'd been told the mother agreed police should be called. She said she told school officials not to call them.
Two officers tried to tell Jerry to go back to class and told him he had a choice — class or jail, Esquibel said. When the boy got upset and loud, they handcuffed him, she said.
The police report says Jerry was arrested, taken to jail, booked and released to his parents.
Esquibel said that when she arrived at the police station, he was standing against a wall, crying.
He told her he was placed "in a dark room with a window, a metal toilet and a metal sink," and that inmates banged on the window "saying they were going to get him and cussing," she said. He said officers told him to stop crying or they'd let the inmates get him, she said.
What complete and utter silliness...
I'd have a fugging land shark (lawyer) and be suing the lot of them without mercy! I'd badger the cops who did this to their grave! Talk about working without a brain. They MUST be libs....
You don't throw the kid in jail, you give him a spanking.
*shaking head*
In the liberal hellhole of NM, the libretards introduce the child to the power of the police state ASAP so to appropriately cow them for acceptance of the cradle-to-grave state.
On the contrary, it was a good lesson. Isn't that the purpose of school, to learn things?
1) Praise the little darling, no matter what, and prop up his self-esteem.
2) Throw him in jail with hardened criminals.
You might think that Spanking would fit in there as an additional tool of child-rearing, but nowadays that would be considered unacceptable child abuse, so we're back to choosing one of our two options (above).
They put him in jail because he was crying? OMG!
First of all the kid needed an attitude adjustment, for sure. On the other hand, I think school personnel should have been able to handle the kid themselves. Give him a good spanking and suspend him. No real reason for the police.
In Georgia the child would have been put in a 6 foot by 8 foot block room with no windows and sound dampers on the solid wood door.
The lights would be turned off, and the child left until it suited the one who put them there to let them out .
No records would be kept of the incidence.
.... they call it "time out".
Same state where male teachers tell 15 yr old girls to play with condoms and enjoy it..
Geez, I hate to think what would have happened if he used a spitball.
Mommy's looking for a payday, no doubt.
Why didn't the principal give him a dressing down and send him home with a note? Adult jail is too harsh for an 8 year old.
And, the Lawyer.....what "lesson" is learned there, hmm?
You want to teach him a lesson, have him get up in front of the whole school & apologize. THAT would do more than handcuffing him IMHO. I know, I had to do somthing quite similar.....changed me forever, and for the better.
"Guillen said he'd been told the mother agreed police should be called. She said she told school officials not to call them."
Somebody's lying here. I bet it's the mother. What mother wouldn't want her third-grader arrested and carted off to an adult prison in a situation such as this one?/sarcasm
"GO TO SCHOOL, BECOME A CRIMINAL" -- the new motto for schools that have to resort to calling the police when they can't handle a third-grader. The school administration should have told his mother to take him home until he calmed down.
She's going to get it too.
And, isn't that a nice stamp on society? Makes me sick.
Apt punishement for the adults who let this thing progress so far. Calling the cops on a third grader. Maybe this was the school getting even with the parents for not having the child on Ridilin. Where have the teachers gone? We don't need any more eductors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.