Posted on 04/26/2005 5:02:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
ST. PETERSBURG - The mother of the 5-year-old girl who was handcuffed at school by police has withdrawn her daughter from Pinellas public schools and is moving out of state, superintendent Clayton Wilcox said Monday night.
The development was the latest in a bizarre saga that began Friday, when a videotape of the handcuffing was made public.
Since then, wrenching video images of the wailing kindergartener being handcuffed by St. Petersburg police have raced around the globe, airing and re-airing on television news shows in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, around Asia and beyond.
On Monday morning, the Largo lawyer representing the girl's mother appeared on five network news shows. He returned wearily to his office to find a fax from the mother, 24-year-old Inga Akins, stating he had been fired. The fax had been sent from the tabloid TV show A Current Affair, on which the mother appeared Friday and Monday.
Also on Monday came the prospect that the Rev. Al Sharpton would be coming to town. The famous New York crusader and one-time presidential candidate is intrigued and considering weighing in on the episode, his staff said.
"Instantly he felt that it smelled bad, but he wants to research it first," said his spokeswoman Rachel Nordlinger. "It could be a case of police brutality or a case of her civil rights being violated."
Wilcox had no further information on Akins' move to pull the girl out of school. She was handcuffed at Fairmount Park Elementary on March 14 and transferred to another public school after the incident.
Wilcox said he found out about her leaving the system when he asked his staff Monday how she was doing in the new school.
A call to Akins' cell phone went unreturned Monday night.
Pinellas County records show that a St. Petersburg apartment complex where she lived moved to evict her on March 31, about two weeks after the handcuffing that put her daughter's face on TV screens across he world.
Wilcox said the girl had been out of school since Thursday.
John Trevena, who had been serving as the attorney for Akins, said he learned from an executive producer at A Current Affair that the girl and her mother traveled to New York City over the weekend, where they stayed at the show's expense.
The case of the handcuffed little girl was the top story on the tabloid program Monday night, with images of the girl smelling a flower and running through a park laughing.
The show interviewed a child psychologist who said the handcuffing might be racially motivated. A Current Affair also said the girl "had to flee her home to escape the media."
The show blamed Trevena's release of the video to major media outlets last week, including the St. Petersburg Times . The lawyer said a producer from the show "raged" at him last Friday, saying the release of the video violated an exclusive agreement between Akins and A Current Affair.
Trevena said he had been unaware of any agreement.
The show made no mention of its part in the media frenzy that has followed the video.
A Current Affair clearly communicated it had every intention of running the videotape, Trevena said. He also said the show interviewed Akins and her daughter only days after the handcuffing incident.
On Friday, a few hours after the video began screaming across the world, the show announced to the media that it had an exclusive.
It sent out a news release titled: "Five-year-old African American girl handcuffed by three police officers. A Current Affair gets first national look at incident on tape."
The program Monday evening did not disclose on air how much it had paid Akins for the story. When asked what the sum was Monday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the show laughed at the question. She said there would be no comment on the story.
Trevena called the program's actions "highly unethical and possibly illegal." He said he was concerned that his client was in New York discussing the case with another party without legal advice.
The videotape shows the girl defying an assistant principal and another school staff member as she tore items off walls and swung at the educators.
Later, it shows the girl in the assistant principal's office tearing items off a bulletin board, climbing on a table and swinging at the assistant principal numerous times.
The video ends after about 28 minutes with the girl crying as three St. Petersburg police officers place her in handcuffs.
The girl had a history of problems at the school, though the full extent is not known because student records are not public.
District officials have discussed an incident several weeks before the handcuffing in which a city police officer was called to the school because of a behavior problem with the girl. The officer said something to her about the possibility of being handcuffed if her behavior continued.
Akins later objected to that conversation, part of an ongoing feud with the school over her daughter's treatment.
District officials say the video started as an exercise by the girl's teacher to improve her craft in the classroom. But they acknowledge that the girl's history may have played a part in the decision to keep the camera rolling that day.
Though city police are being harshly criticized for their role in the incident, the department declined Wednesday to elaborate on the rationale for the handcuffing, citing a pending investigation.
Police spokesman Bill Proffitt said the department stood by a statement made in mid March, which was that department policy allows the handcuffing of minors in certain situations.
How did an incident that received mild attention in March blossom into a worldwide phenomenon five weeks later?
The video, said Matthew Felling, media director at The Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.
"It's not necessarily about the little girl, it's about the visceral nature of it," he said. "Is it compelling? Yes. Is it emotional porn? Yes. Is it internationally relevant news? No."
He said too many media outlets had been airing only part of the video, which is about 28 minutes long.
"This story is driven by 10 seconds of footage - two seconds of the tantrum and eight seconds of handcuffing," he said. "Completely taken out of context, but that is the media's way."
I just watched these videos for the first time.
In my opinion, the school had little choice in this situation. It is heartwrenching to watch this little child being handcuffed, and I feel there were at least two other things the school and the police might have considered.
A small room with some padding and a window to observe the child would have confined the her, and prevented further damage to herself, others and the room. This would have also taken away the child's control and would have removed the negative reinforcement.
Also, what really struck me is that in all the calm redirection and verbal cues the administrators gave to this girl, no one (at least that I saw) actually asked this girl what was bothering her. At the age of 5, many children still can't verbalize some of their frustrations, so they act outward in physical ways. I hope the school will consider this in the future.
Yes, and I'll pray for my country, too.
Maybe there's a different article out there the rest of us haven't seen.
Don't disparage it until you and your family have been slaves for 10 or 15 generations.
Try looking up a topic called "anti-pedobaptist nomenclature". There should be a section in there about retention of African names in America.
These aren't African names, though. Ja'eisha doesn't mean anything, does it?
And where are the other children?
It's called liberty.
Funny little foreign people usually don't understand the concept.
How pathetic eh?~!
My guess is that the teacher wanted the child removed from the classroom and was demonstrating what would happen when the child was told to pick up the toys or whatever it was. The teacher knew that the child would resist and go to pieces.
Where's Dad?...On a corner blazing a bowl!
I know a woman named BUFFY. It's not a nickname.
LOL
I remember the school calling the police twice for kids acting up in grade school, once when a kid climbed the baseball backstop and refused to come down and another time a kid had climbed a fence and was sitting on it, after jumping across the lunch tables and running to the edge of the playground. This time however, I think that the teacher precipitated the outburst from this kid in order to document it. She just didn't know how bad it was going get.
One day a Jewish lady work associate was once telling us about all of her aunts and uncles. She had one uncle, Robert. I replied that I too had an uncle Robert. Then she said she had an aunt Naomi. I too have an aunt Naomi.
Then she went into the heavy hitting with a Mary, Jean, June, Sophie, Nancy and Ruth ~ and, lo and behold, I have aunts with those names as well.
So, I pulled the one upsmanship ~ I asked her if she also had an aunt Christine!
Mom looks like a real winner too.
The child was born, not aborted, Praise God.
That's it, unconscious racism. Is it possible that blacks have it too?
The Yoruba names do have meanings. The way they stick the words together in a name is very similar to the way the Japanese do the same thing.
Although any particular individual might not know what the words mean, it's not too long ago that enough African-Americans still spoke Geetchie and Gullah so that there were folks around to provide the meanings.
You did know, of course, that one of the ways African-Americans were kept at the bottom of the pile in the South was to not teach them English~!
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.