Police handcuffing 5-year-old
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TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
CFLarsen said:
How was she harmed physically? Bruises? Circulation cut off, leading to gangrene? Chipped tooth? Hangnail? Broken ribs? Allergy to steel leading to hives?
You can make a case for mental harm, emotional harm, psychological harm, social harm. But if you're going to claim physical harm resulted, you should be able to say what that physical harm was. Shouldn't you?
Mycroft
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Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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Should these boys have been handcuffed?
http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=3226982&nav=0w0vYoD8
Whoah!
http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=3226982&nav=0w0vYoD8
Whoah!
CFLarsen said:
And psychic powers exist. If you are not convinced, then you are not convinced. Agree? ... I thought so, so why should everybody else agree when you use the same argument?
I wouldn't have participated in this thread unless this particular comment had brought to my memory the armed air marshall thread where you promised to try telling the air port offcials that you intend to kill anyone you noticed carrying a gun in the plane. Have you carried out this promise? What were the results?
RandFan said:
From what I have read there is no proof that the child was physically harmed. I don't know if she was subjected to a forensic examination, I guess that she was but I would be surprized f the police officers have hurt the kid.
There is another kind of trauma though that I have reasons to believe that it might have been caused to the kid but it's impossible to trace it right now because some psychological traumas cannot be diagnosed immediately.
Here is what I know as a litigator in Greece, something that might not be the case in USA but since I saw this video as million others did all around the world I got the following impression.
When a police officer arrests a citizen he must report whether he has used handcuffs or not. In any case, he must justify his decision. So, handcuffs are not an accessory to every arrest but an equipment that they have to justify its use.
From what I saw the use of handcuffs in this case wasn't justified. I repeat that I base my judgment on what I saw. Also,I couldn't help noticing that the kid was black.
As for the point of this thread I would be interested to read the reactions of the citizens of a country that has put the foundations of modern Education and Children's Psychology when they see it collapsing in the sight of a 5 years handcuffed kid. The teachers in the school have nulified themselves by chosing to exercise discipline instead of persuasion.
Instead all I have read is a lame attempt for a rationalization of an action that should have caused at least a sense of disturbance( whether the kid was harmed or not it was an unpleasant spectacle) that is shockingly absent from the american posters in this thread just because a European brought the issue as a discussion topic.
Congratulations.
CFLarsen said:
You can lead a pseudoskeptic to an honest debate, but you can't make him participate...
Claud, what is the actual evidence of physical harm that you claim. Bruises? Cuts? A lost limb? WHAT?
You're not doing a very good job here.
I also see that the issue of mental disturbance in the child was raised only much later in the thread. That was my first thought when I saw the film, although there was no reason in my eyes for the police to make handcuffs necessary. I certainly would be thinking of the psychological trauma that could be suffered by the child by going through this action. This isn't justified in my opinion. I'm shocked that the teachers let this happen or indeed, enouraged this to happen. 
Meadmaker
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Cleopatra said:
In my opinion, handcuffs were unnecessary, but they might have been called upon by department policy. In America, "policy" trumps common sense every time, because failure to follow policy is more likely to cause a loss when the inevitable litigation comes around. Failure to follow common sense, by whatever definition it goes, doesn't result in litigation.
As for the point of this thread I would be interested to read the reactions of the citizens of a country that has put the foundations of modern Education and Children's Psychology when they see it collapsing in the sight of a 5 years handcuffed kid. The teachers in the school have nulified themselves by chosing to exercise discipline instead of persuasion.
I agree with the first part of this. My reaction to this incident is to see a collapse of the system. If you can't handle a five year old without handcuffs, you have a real problem. And in America, we have a real problem. However, I disagree with the last sentence. When persuasion fails, as it will from time to time, discipline is necessary. My objection in this case is that the teachers are not allowed to exercise the proper discipline, so it was thrown into a different arena, becoming a law enforcement issue instead of a school discipline issue.
Instead all I have read is a lame attempt for a rationalization of an action that should have caused at least a sense of disturbance( whether the kid was harmed or not it was an unpleasant spectacle) that is shockingly absent from the american posters in this thread just because a European brought the issue as a discussion topic.
I don't think it is "just because a European brought the issue". I think that the Americans have a better sense of the legal climate in America, and can comprehend better why each person in this case acted as he did.
I, personally, think this incident is rather sick. However, I understand how it came about, and wouldn't blame the police. I will make a "lame attempt at rationalization" of their actions, but I won't try to rationalize the situation.
This really does show a disturbing nature of our society, and it really should be fixed.
crimresearch
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"When a police officer arrests a citizen he must report whether he has used handcuffs or not. In any case, he must justify his decision. So, handcuffs are not an accessory to every arrest but an equipment that they have to justify its use."
And exactly how many times does it have to be pointed out by American law enforcement professionals, that such mandatory justification for every use of handcuffs is not the case here?.
Or that it is in fact, more the norm for the opposite to be true...any officer who fails to use cuffs risks having to justify their failure to follow policy should anything happen?
But hey, don't worry...the mother's lawyer is on TV this morning, claiming that the use of a camera forced the child to act violently...
And exactly how many times does it have to be pointed out by American law enforcement professionals, that such mandatory justification for every use of handcuffs is not the case here?.
Or that it is in fact, more the norm for the opposite to be true...any officer who fails to use cuffs risks having to justify their failure to follow policy should anything happen?
But hey, don't worry...the mother's lawyer is on TV this morning, claiming that the use of a camera forced the child to act violently...
RandFan
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Thank you.Cleopatra said:
Are they objective reasons?
Then please share with us those reasons.
How and why is this significant?
Fine, this is your opinion. Can you give us objective reasons why?
Yes, and so have I. Can you objectively tell us what it is about your judgment that brought you to this conclusion?
Thank you for sharing. Do you have any objective evidence that this fact caused her harm? Do you have any objective evidence that this was done because she was black.
Watch the video again, this was an extreme situation. It lasted a long time. The teachers absolutely tried persuasion.
I really resent this. Many if not most of us have said that we found the incident troubling and that it was perhaps not warranted.
Which is not objective evidence. Things are NOT always as they appear.
Wrong, we simply wanted to know why we should be outraged.
Rhetorical.
RandFan
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It is easy to claim psychological trauma. Can you prove it? As I understand just because something is troubling to a child does not mean it will cause any permanant harm. Sending a young child to his or her room can be troubling.Kiless said:I also see that the issue of mental disturbance in the child was raised only much later in the thread. That was my first thought when I saw the film, although there was no reason in my eyes for the police to make handcuffs necessary. I certainly would be thinking of the psychological trauma that could be suffered by the child by going through this action. This isn't justified in my opinion. I'm shocked that the teachers let this happen or indeed, enouraged this to happen.
TragicMonkey said:
Have you read my preceding posts? If you did, you would probably remark that I've been arguing that teachers should be able to use reasonable force to restrain a child. I believe that having that power is necessary to both teach and parent. FYI, in Canada, you can't physically discipline a child, but the Supreme Court recently held that teachers and school administrators can use reasonable force to restrain students who are posing a threat to themselves or to others, if I recall correctly. That's reasonable, and it doesn't involve neither cops nor handcuffs. Teacher restrains pissed off 5 year old girl isn't news, while cops handcuff 5 year old girl is.
davefoc
Philosopher
Before I had children I pretty much had assumed that you controlled them with reason and discussion. Surely children would understand that behaving badly wasn't in their interest and once that was explained to them they would stop.
I think with my two children this was pretty much the way it was after they were six or seven. But that was not remotely the way it was when they were three or four. I had no idea that children just went into unreasoning tantrums and were completely non-responsive to arguments as to why they should stop misbehaving.
So when I saw CFL pontificating away about how he would be such an expert at handling an unruly child, my reaction was to pretty much see them as the musings of a non-parent.
For me all the specualtion about what might have gone better in this thread was reasonable. Teachers might have more skill at handling a severely disruptive child, it might have gone better if they had not been so afraid of touching the child to constrain the her, policemen might have had special training in handling severely misbehaving five year olds, maybe child protective services should have been called instead of the police, etc.
But I am completely with Randfan and others. I thought what the policemen did was reasonable but not necessarily the best way to handle the situation. If I'm a cop with just davefoc's knowledge of how to handle this kind of situation I suspect I would have handcuffed her. As a man, there is no way that I am going to put myself in a situation where I am touching somebody else's child more than absolutely necessary. And assuming that we we're transporting the child, putting the child in handcuffs would have been a no-brainer.
I also think that no matter what was done in this situation somebody was going to be sued by this parent. This kid's biggest problem, one that she may never recover from, is that she has a disastrously incompetent parent and it doesn't look like anything will be done about that. Instead my guess is that she will find some blood sucking lawyers that will pander to her emotions with the goal of sucking a few bucks out of the system.
One thought I just had was who released the video. This sounds like a significant violation of the privacy rights of the child to me.
I think with my two children this was pretty much the way it was after they were six or seven. But that was not remotely the way it was when they were three or four. I had no idea that children just went into unreasoning tantrums and were completely non-responsive to arguments as to why they should stop misbehaving.
So when I saw CFL pontificating away about how he would be such an expert at handling an unruly child, my reaction was to pretty much see them as the musings of a non-parent.
For me all the specualtion about what might have gone better in this thread was reasonable. Teachers might have more skill at handling a severely disruptive child, it might have gone better if they had not been so afraid of touching the child to constrain the her, policemen might have had special training in handling severely misbehaving five year olds, maybe child protective services should have been called instead of the police, etc.
But I am completely with Randfan and others. I thought what the policemen did was reasonable but not necessarily the best way to handle the situation. If I'm a cop with just davefoc's knowledge of how to handle this kind of situation I suspect I would have handcuffed her. As a man, there is no way that I am going to put myself in a situation where I am touching somebody else's child more than absolutely necessary. And assuming that we we're transporting the child, putting the child in handcuffs would have been a no-brainer.
I also think that no matter what was done in this situation somebody was going to be sued by this parent. This kid's biggest problem, one that she may never recover from, is that she has a disastrously incompetent parent and it doesn't look like anything will be done about that. Instead my guess is that she will find some blood sucking lawyers that will pander to her emotions with the goal of sucking a few bucks out of the system.
One thought I just had was who released the video. This sounds like a significant violation of the privacy rights of the child to me.