5-year-old boy handcuffed in school, taken to hospital psych ward for misbehaving

[ariesgem]

Kindergartner Dennis Rivera, 5, tells how he was handcuffed to chair at Queens school last week as mom, Jasmina Vasquez, listens.



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.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/25/2008-01-25_5yearold_boy_handcuffed_in_school_taken_.html

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. The actions of all the adults involved are reprehensible.

This is the height of a society in decline.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. atleast they didn't taser him,

or beat him to death in an intensive interrogation - either would seem to be the norm today.

[Mojorabbit]

3. Good God

common sense has gone out the window in this country. I would have gone ballistic if I was that mother.

[unapatriciated]

25. so would have I but....

In today's world that would have got me cuffed and tased, unfortunately.

[donheld]

4. I hope they sue the nuts off everyone involved!

:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

[Afje]

6. I know I would.

Teaching absolute deference for authority - any authority - is the only mission in schools.

[Kutjara]

5. Standard operating procedure in the American Police State.

Every action is a crime and every citizen is a criminal.

[Afje]

7. One can never be too young

to be a criminal or nuts.

[Kutjara]

8. And every nonconformity is pathology...

...to be "treated" and "cured."

[alittlelark]

9. The pic they chose is interesting

It shows the mother with her eyes closed, and the son looking devious...... odd. The photographer likely took 3-7 pics of them (at least).



I doubt the mother had her eyes closed (denoting 'oblivious') in all of them.

[alphafemale]

10. ...and Spongebob is horrified.

The kid looks devious...?

How?

I don't see it?


He looks big for Kindergarten but just because a kid is big when they are 5 doesn't negate the fact that they are STILL 5 yrs old. Even if the are over 4ft tall. They are still a baby.

[alittlelark]

11. Out of all the pics the photographer shot

They chose THAT one. Mother w/ eyes closed, kid looking like kindergartener w/ a personality.

Think about how often you see angelic looking kids in the paper. The photographer shot MANY pictures of that 'angelic'kid - they choose the 'cute' one.


They did not in this instance..... why?

[alphafemale]

15. I really don't see that he looks devious.

He looks BIG for a Kindergartener that's about all I see.

[seabeyond]

26. kindergarten w/ a personality... attitude. lol. not personality

looks more like attitude, projected, for the worlds benefit. were there other pictures to chose from? i don't know. not if this is what the kid wanted those to see. we all know attitude in a child and how it is about useless to try and get something else when the child doesn't want to give it.

this child had incident breaking glass? then another incident day prior hitting someone. and then this incident this day. cuffs? i dont know. i have been able to deal with 5 yr olds,.... but then i wonder what is up with this kid and the parenting that there are this many incidents. i know with both my kids at 5 i never had ONE... let alone three in a small time. further, my kids are now 10 and 13 and i have still not had ONE.

i would be concerned that my 5 yr old has caused this many incidents and be more concerned with his behavior than what the school did to the kid

i am an advocate for children, almost always stand up for them. i am opposed to no tolerance rule and stupid authoritative figures and feel cops are way out of control. so this is not a knee jerk reaction protecting authority. i oppose authority way more often. but i believe in personal responsibility even with a 5 yr old. age appropriate of course, still it is important for them to learn self responsibility.

i wonder why this child is not being given responsibility for his actions

[comradebillyboy]

12. that was an obvious over reaction bult let me ask you this-

I have a new student, a junior in high school, in my 1st period physics class. I told him if he would not stop being disruptive, I would like him to leave the room. He got up to go and then returned to his seat. He sits by the bulliten board the back of the room. After class I found a drawing tacked, right behind where he sits. The drawing showed a sword cutting my head off, with the label max douche bag, clearly referring to me.

Do you think I should just ignore it, or should I consider it a real to me personally. This boy is much bigger than me. He is disruptive and rude to me personally.

I don't think I'll let this slide. I am going to move him away from his friends and will not let an obnoxious asshole teenager keep me from teaching my class. He cleans up his act or his little drawing goes to campus security, I'll arrange a parent conference and his ass will be gone from the school.

You may not know it, but its quite difficult to maintain a reasonable learning environment in a class of 30 some 16 and 17 year old students.

[donheld]

13. No you should not ignore it, but you should never again

compare what happened to you to the actions of a 5 year old. There is a HUGE difference.

[comradebillyboy]

16. there is no real comparison in the situations, but perhaps you can

see why teachers sometimes act paranoid and over react. in a class of 30 children it only takes one to poison the learning environment.

[alphafemale]

14. 16 to 17. Yeah I'd be inclined to not let that slide either.

12 or 13 maybe. They have a rough time expressing anger and sometimes do inappropriate things.

But 16 or 17?? That's freaky scary.

[elleng]

17. I'm sure it is difficult to maintain a reasonable learning

environment under such circumstances. Where is your school located?

There should be an effective resource for students such as this. He's a new student, with new or no friends? and is angry about that situation? He takes some of his anger out by being disruptive.

Was the drawing 'good,' aside from the subject matter? It seems to me that there might be several useful approaches, none of which include treating him like 'an obnoxious asshole teenager.'

[Rosemary2205]

18. The kid punched someone the day before?

What did they do about THAT? The kid has been acting out in class and all they do is talk to him and let it go. He PUNCHES someone and apparently they just gummed at him and let it go. Then the kid throws an all out fit and they finally decide the put the smackdown on him. The kid clearly was going to escalate until he got the reaction he wanted.

IMHO they needed to scare the shit out of him. He is getting VIOLENT. They should have lowered the boom on him the millisecond he got violent - not wait and let it escalate even more. A 5 year old is going to be willful and disruptive sometimes. IMHO that's actually a good thing as a kid begins to figure out who they are and where they fit into this world. But there cannot be VIOLENCE in the classroom. That is unacceptable. Period.

Violent people who attack others end up in handcuffs. IMHO it was a good lesson to that little brat on what society will tolerate and what it won't. Better slap him in cuffs now for 15 minutes and give the kid incentive to learn some conflict resolution skills than for him to wind up in prison for 20 years after beating someone to death.

[malaise]

20. Hope you're OK with this

when it's your relative

[Rosemary2205]

22. I work with these kids every single day.

They escalate and escalate and escalate. Each kid need a different solution. It isn't one size fits all. When it's all said and done the kids HAVE to learn some sort of conflict resolution or else they are going to grow up and use violence to get what they want. It's not any easier when sometimes a parent thinks little Tommy's violence is "a phase" or even "cute" or "he's just being a boy". Kids need an outlet for their frustrations - some need it more than others. But assault on others isn't an appropriate outlet and must be stopped. Period.

Hopefully now that the school has finally done something other than talk, the admins and the mom and the other adults in this kid's life can start to push him in a more productive direction.

[Echo In Light]

21. "Violent people who attack others end up in handcuffs." Except for the U.S. govt

[Rosemary2205]

23. Sigh

Who knows, maybe if GW and Dick had a taste of the cuffs as a 5 yr old we wouldn't be in this mess.

[saltpoint]

19. "He suffers from speech problems, asthma, and attention deficit disorder..."

--minus the asthma, very much like Bush.

And needless to say I like the idea of handcuffing Bush to a chair and hauling him off to a psych ward. This little guy in Queens may not be an angel, but my guess is that to date he has not ordered the assault of a sovereign nation, the shock-and-awe bombing of its citizens on completely false pretenses, lied about it to every corner of the globe, and endorsed the torture of human beings without recourse to mechanisms of justice.

[sarcasmo]

24. Can you say, Lawsuit.