08/11/2020 - 13:00
- Clarín.com
- Dresses
"This is so that you learn and do not repeat the same mistake again," says one of the three police officers from Florida (United States) who were in the management office of Gerald Adams Elementary School in Key West, in front of an 8 year old boy . The little boy cries and is terrified as the officers assure him over and over that he is going to jail.
The images are so brutal that the case shocked and sparked anger and outrage from a crowd on social media. The video was posted on Twitter on Monday by lawyer Ben Crump , who fights for racial equality in that country and who represents George Floyd's family.
According to the lawyer, the case happened in 2018 and the boy was subjected to a tactic known as "scared straight", which seeks to impose terror on the child by briefly subjecting him to the same protocol that a major would receive. This is practiced with juvenile criminals, but in this case it was applied to a boy of just 8 years old, who did not stop crying while the officers handcuffed him.
"You're going to jail": the shocking video that shows the arrest of an 8-year-old boy in a school in the United States.
In the video recorded by the officers' cameras on December 14, 2018, it is seen how the officers put the minor on his back, with his hands resting on a closet. Then they try to put the handcuffs on him, but since his hands are so small they can't . Minutes later, the three officers walk with the boy to the patrol car and before he gets into the vehicle one of the teachers approaches to try to comfort the child, who was crying in terror.
At that moment one of the officers said to the minor: "Do you understand that this is very serious? I hate that you have put me in this position of having to do this. The thing is that you made a mistake and now it is time to learn and mature from all this, so as not to repeat the mistake ". The boy was immediately transferred to the patrol car.
The little boy was registered at the Juvenile Justice Center in Key West.
"You're going to jail": the shocking video that shows the detention of an 8-year-old boy in a US school
In posting the images, Crump noted: "Although he posed no threat to the officers or the school staff, the minor was put in the back seat of a police vehicle, taken to a detention center and charged with the crime. of aggression ".
"With 3.5 feet tall (1.07 meters) and 64 pounds (29 kilos) in weight, this little boy did not represent a danger to anyone," said the lawyer. Additionally, he noted that he and Pennsylvania attorney Devon Jacobs will file a federal lawsuit against the Key West Police Department and the Monroe County School District this week.
"This is a harrowing example of how our educational system and policies train children to be criminals by treating them like criminals . If convicted this child will be a convicted criminal at age 8. This child was failed by everyone who participated in this horrific incident. "Crump denounced.
The cause of the detention of the minor
The attorney explained that, although the child was in an Individualized Education Program (IEP) because he suffers from disabilities, he was left in the care of a substitute teacher who "did not know or was not concerned" about his special needs.
As he described, the teacher forced him to move where she wanted, to which the child responded aggressively. The teacher then called the police , who threatened the boy with jail and told him that he had a very serious problem.
"You're going to jail": the shocking video that shows the arrest of an 8-year-old boy in a school in the United States.
The police report details that during a class the teacher asked him several times to sit up well. He refused and said, "Don't put your hands on me." Given that answer, the teacher told him to walk with her, and he replied: "My mother is going to hit you." He then struck her with his right hand on the chest.
Officer Michael Malgrat wrote in the report that he was in the school's administrative office when the teacher and the boy arrived and the minor "had his hands clenched like he was ready to fight."
Despite the rejection and rejection that the images generated, on Monday Key West Police Chief Sean T. Brandenburg said his officers did nothing wrong: "According to the report, standard operating procedures were followed."
The Monroe County School District issued a statement Monday in which it announced that it will not comment on the case due to possible legal action.
"The District is not, and has not been involved in litigation regarding this incident," reads the statement emailed to the Miami Herald. "Due to the possibility of this matter becoming a legal problem in the future, we have been advised not to comment further on the incident at this time."
"The police should not have any role in punishing our children or in carrying out traumatic maneuvers like this one in our schools," said the former mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro, who added to the rejection of what happened.
