[jwplayer fkGeltbO]
Trouble with a 6-year-old?
Cuff ’em.
That’s what happened at a Stone Mountain, Georgia, school whose officials now are being challenged for their method of disciplining a special-needs student.
According to WXIA-TV in Atlanta, the mother, Lakaisha Reid, said she and her husband arrived at the campus after getting a call from officials.
“We go into the school, a gentleman takes us back, I hear my son yelling. He’s screaming,” she said.
She said there were bruises on her son’s wrists from the metal handcuffs, and she was angry.
“He just ran away from school,” she said of son Patrick. “It does not require handcuffs for this.”
The report said an official at Pine Ridge Elementary explained the boy was handcuffed for his own protection, because he “was acting in a disruptive manner and being self-destructive.”
The school said the boy was acting violently, “running into walls, banging his head on [a] table and placing his health at risk.”
The mother still differed.
“He’s a 6-year-old kid,” she said. “I don’t think that was the appropriate way of dealing with that.”
She told the station she wanted to share her story to benefit others.
“They need to have police officers that are trained for special-need kids or for any kids that are that age,” she said. “That’s pretty young for handcuffs already, you understand?”
