Posted on 01/25/2008 5:28:47 AM PST by fweingart
A 5-year-old boy was handcuffed and hauled off to a psych ward for misbehaving in kindergarten - but the tot's parents say NYPD school safety agents are the ones who need their heads examined.
"He's 5 years old. He was scared to death," Dennis Rivera's mother, Jasmina Vasquez, told the Daily News. "You cannot imagine what it's done to him."
Dennis - who suffers from speech problems, asthma and attention deficit disorder - never went back to class at Public School 81 in Queens after the traumatic incident.
His mom and a school source said Dennis threw a tantrum inside the Ridgewood school at 11 a.m. on Jan. 17.
Dennis was taken to the principal's office, where he apparently knocked items off a desk.
Rather than calling the boy's parents, a school safety agent cuffed the boy's small hands behind his back using metal restraints, the school source said.
The agent and school officials then called an ambulance to take the tot to Elmhurst Hospital Center for a mental evaluation.
Vasquez was stunned when a guidance counselor called her at work to say her son was being taken to the psych ward.
Vasquez rushed to the school from her job as a patient representative at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. On the way, she called Dennis' baby-sitter, who was closer to PS 81, and asked her to hurry over to the school.
When baby-sitter Sandy Ortiz arrived, Dennis was still handcuffed, she said. School safety agents also were holding his elbows even though the boy was calm, Ortiz said. Dennis is about 4-feet-3 and weighs 68 pounds.
"I hugged him. I said, 'OK, release the cuffs, I'm taking him,'" she recalled. "They told me, 'No, Miss. You're not taking him anywhere.'"
Ortiz routinely picks up Dennis from class. She said she's never seen him behave in a way that would require him to be restrained.
"I was so upset. There's no reason to handcuff a baby of 5 years old, traumatize him that way," she said.
The handcuffs were removed before Dennis was walked out of the school and driven by ambulance to Elmhurst Hospital Center. He was evaluated at the hospital and released about four hours later, his mom said.
School sources said Dennis had punched an assistant principal the day before he acted out in class. The sources also said he broke glass in an office door a week earlier.
A spokeswoman for the city Education Department declined to comment on why school safety agents needed to handcuff Dennis, saying the incident was under investigation.
The NYPD, which oversees school safety agents, also declined to discuss specifics. Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said, "We hope common sense would prevail and we are looking at what happened."
Vasquez immediately withdrew Dennis from PS 81 and enrolled him in a private school, Grand Street Settlement.
"I asked him, 'Do you want to go back to that school?' He broke down in tears," Vasquez said. "He said, 'I don't want to go! I don't want to go!'"
this boy can indeed be five......just a very large five year old......and usually they expect a taller child to behave as if he were older and they don’t.....the breaking of the glass door is unusual and a red flag for me.....however HANDCUFFS? are they nuts?
Wow.. too young to act like a bad***d dude!
When I was a kid, the thought of doing something like that will certainly scare the heck out of me not because I can't do it but because Dad's way of letting me know it's bad is both in words and deeds.
Somebody's teachin' this kid that he knows everything in this world at that age... too bad.
Yes, it is. However, because of the absurd conditions under which public schools operate, it was probably necessary.
Teachers and school administrators are legally liable for every time they even lay a finger on a child, even to restrain a five-year-old on a rampage. A principal has no legal standing to grab hold of a kid and make him stop; if he does so, he's potentially vulnerable to assault charges and opens himself and the school up to a lawsuit.
So in order to restrain a child who needs it, the administrator needs to call in someone who does have the legal standing to physically restrain people: the police. If the police cuff a kid for acting out, the principal won't have to deal with a parent pressing assault charges.
And that's why schools are calling the police these days.
According to the article, the babysitter tried to pick up the child.
When baby-sitter Sandy Ortiz arrived, Dennis was still handcuffed, she said. School safety agents also were holding his elbows even though the boy was calm, Ortiz said. Dennis is about 4-feet-3 and weighs 68 pounds."I hugged him. I said, 'OK, release the cuffs, I'm taking him,'" she recalled. "They told me, 'No, Miss. You're not taking him anywhere.'"
Ortiz routinely picks up Dennis from class.
-here’s a strange one. What have our public schools become? handcuffs and a trip to the physch ward....YIKES!
I suspect, that over the years, school officials and teachers now have zero disciplinary options over their "students." The school may have little choice other than calling authorities outside of the establishment. There was a time when the teacher could take whatever action was warranted, including spanking. Another spanking awaited the child whenever he or she got home after school. Those days are gone! Today instead of another spanking the teacher gets "spanked" by the parents; i.e. the teacher faces lawyers and disciplinary action, anger management classes, diversity training, etc.
They’re plastic strip ties really.
I think I could support forced home-schooling for certain parents, although I’m not sure of the legal hurdles involved.
4’3” and 68 is the size of an average 8 or 9 year old. I agree, something’s not being reported right here.
“what are school authorities to do?”
Bring back corporal punishment at school. This stuff would be over in a few minutes and everyone would be better off, especially the child.
I think they need a Marine drill instructor on the premises to just terrify the kids into submission.
I have seen them used......but good grief - I think they went too far.......heck, as an EMT I can’t just tie anyone up. They better have used legal means to accomplish shipping him off to the phsych ward like that...or there will be a lawsuit.
a relative of mine was born at 12lbs 15oz.......he was always way too big for his age from his birth in the preemie ward. it happens.
OK, the kids I’ve seen brought in had the plastic tie things. And they were as much to keep the kid from hurting themselves (head hair pulling, clawing etc) than anything else.
I didn’t know that handcuffs could go that small.
metal restraints? keeps getting better.........rme
The answer is in here:
http://www.amazon.com/Child-Training-Tips-Children-Young/dp/1579570003
base on
here:
God’s Word
Dennis isn't likely to live long enough to be a teenager.
Heck, bring back corporal punishment AT HOME.
Frikin’ leftwing, self-esteem oriented, hand wringing pantywaists can just STFU and STFD.
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