If what that video shows is evidence of his “training” for physically restraining minors, his training is deeply and fundamentally flawed.
As far as depriving them of an audience- there are really several parts to that:
Removal of the audience allows the student to save face in front of her peers- at the ages we are talking about, this is not to be underestimated. There’s the student’s dignity to be considered.
It might help the officer as well- he has less of an audience to which he needs to play the “tough guy” roll- and that can help de-escalate him as well.
Because physical force is the very last resort in a school setting, every other step has to be taken before it is applied. The fact that the audience hasn’t been removed is ample evidence this is not the case.
What’s the rush that the cop has to do this all by himself? The video shows no immediate danger- there are no weapons, there is no commotion- nothing. Get the help you need to do it right (if you have to)
I never, ever said that he should be in the room by himself with the student. That’s a lovely straw man you have there, but I’m not buying.
We do, in fact, know what started this: she was told to put her phone away and refused. That’s it. So she was manhandled, thrown, and had her arm broken for that.
It’s also worth pointing out that this poor girl was orphaned a few months ago and is now in foster care. This is an extremely difficult and confusing position for a child to be in. I lost my father at a young age and dealt with abuse after that, and needless to say I had innumerable behavioral problems in school for years afterward. Nobody ever treated me like this; if they had, I can’t see how the added trauma and abuse could have taught me anything valuable, except to be extremely wary of police, which I fortunately didn’t have to learn until much later as an adult.
I wasn’t aware her arm was broken. I’ll look for an article that states that.
I apologize for the straw-man, it was more due to my lack of imagination and misunderstanding of “removing an audience.” A teacher or counselor present would have been advisable once the other students were removed.
But you’re wrong when you say she was “manhandled, thrown and had her arm broken [for refusing to put her phone away.]” That’s not fair nor accurate. That only began a confrontation that the SCHOOL (not the officer) mishandled. The school is the problem here, the cop just did what cops do - obtain compliance. The school had no business calling in a cop to do this work and if all we take away from this video is “Cops are bad sometimes” then we’ve missed a critical learning moment, in my opinion. We all know cops are bad sometimes. We don’t all know why schools use people, who arrest criminals, for the discipline of students.
I sincerely hope the school is looked into, and their use of police officers, regardless of their training, for disciplining students is discontinued.
Are you sure she got her arm broken? I see that on the GoFundMe but that’s probably just her trying to get paid for this nonsense. The cops say she only suffered rug burn, the broken arm wasn’t reported in any of the initial sources and … well, I hate to ask but can you quote me a good source for him breaking her arm? I can’t find one that isn’t clearly biased towards getting her paid.
More information about the student’s injuries here.
I’m not wrong to say she was “manhandled, thrown and had her arm broken for refusing to put her phone away” because it was the adults that escalated the situation to violence- not the student. She refused to move- and that’s clearly not ok- but procedure would (should) indicate that this a student in crisis, and a counselor/school psychologist should have been brought- not a cop. Regardless, police assigned to schools are supposed to be trained specifically for working in schools- so, I’ll agree this far with you: the school is broken. Either they don’t have good protocol for this sort of thing (which is a big problem), or protocols exist but weren’t followed (which is also a big problem). The admin that brought in the police should face consequences- but to imply that the cop did nothing wrong is preposterous.
If a police force can’t extract a stubborn teenager from a school desk without breaking an arm, injuring her back, neck, rib, and shoulder, and abrading her face, they are a terribly trained and worthless police force. That’s fact.
Every high school now has a police officer that’s “theirs,” and given the us-vs-them attitude that seems to have crept into schools, I don’t see that going away any time soon. But if it’s going to be a thing, it damn well needs to be better done than this.
As has been pointed out upthread by people (including myself) who deal with these situations professionally, in both senses of the word, I might add, what happened was exactly the wrong way to deal with it, as it’s ultimately the most damaging for everyone involved, including those who wish to keep any respect for their authority. It’s supposed to be earned through respect, not instilled by fear, or it doesn’t really work, see?
You seem to be confusing “real life” with an authoritarian worldview. Billions of people live their lives in defiance of law and authority every day, whether that means protesting, skirting traffic rules, using recreational drugs, pirating software, immigrating without papers, etc. With most crimes going unsolved, if seems that for a lot of people disobedience and irreverence for authority are quite simply the norm.
The whole history of Western civilization employing war, genocide, and slavery to “subdue” unruly natives and proletarians confirms not only that “real life” is saturated with defiance to authority, but that this is the default stance when confronted with a violent opposition.
I’m glad that struggling anti-monarchists, abolitionists, unionists, suffragettes, and Civil Rights organizers didn’t throw up their hands in the face of oppression and intone, “Welcome to real life.” Because such anti-authoritarians had different, often radical visions of what “real life” should be, we live in a better world with a rich history in anti-authoritarian resistance.
How is refusing to put your cell phone away comparable to fighting for a woman’s right to vote? What, you think kids should be allowed to talk on the phone during class and this Jane Doe is a Freedom Fighter, fighting against the corrupt overlords of a free public education?
Sorry, that’s a strawman again but, really … how, in your mind, is this a black and white issue? “Either you fight against the corrupt teacher-industrial complex or you’re a sheep!”
No… how about you just put your damn phone away, or get up when the cop says get up, or just follow the rules that exist to get everyone a free education? Sometimes I think radicals are unable to see where “A Good Fight” ends and “Tilting At Windmills” begins.
Why is a strong authority figure inherently wrong? That seems to be the implication here - that authority is inherently wrong and must be fought against. Why is it wrong to find an authority you agree with (ie. You Shouldn’t Be On Your Phone During Class, or You Should Listen To Reasonable Demands Of Police) and strengthen them?
“Get up and leave the classroom” was not a cruel, evil, bad, malignant, terrible, wrong request. It was valid. Unquestionably valid.
…
What?! What more is there? Maybe what came next was wrong, but wrong started with this child and her refusal of a basically good request. “Leave this room because your behavior has made you unwelcome in it.”
I fail to see how anyone can misconstrue this as some sort of civil rights moment.
*Edit
I mean, unless you’re saying that it’s all of our duty to antagonize authority into abusing us. Is that what you’re saying? “Prove the authority is evil by being as big a jerk as you possibly can and then starting a GoFundMe once they prove they’re human and fallible!”? Is that it?
Look, if you’re going to make universal claims like, “Authority will subdue you, there is nothing wrong with it, welcome to real life,” then you should expect some refutation on similar, i.e. somewhat universal, grounds. It’s pretty clumsy of you to say the things you’re saying, in broad authoritarian strokes, and then point out that we have strayed from the details of the classroom. If your premise is to defer to authority for authority’s sake, then a relevant counter-argument should address such a fundamental premise.
As others here have exhaustively pointed out, the officer was wrong. The sheriff’s office agrees. Soon it will likely be official.
The girl disobeyed and was in the wrong for disrupting class, we can all see that; most of us can also see that the savagery that follows is also wrong, but on a whole different scale, and for much more serious reasons.
Since you seem familiar with at least one common logical fallacy–the straw man–then how about another: false dichotomy. You have been saying repeatedly that either the teen complies or faces violence. These are simply not the only two choices available; even police have more training, and certainly more responsibility, than that. Arguing from the basis of authority as you are, I would expect your analysis of the situation to at least overlap with official school and law enforcement sources thus far, and yet even they have clearly come out in condemnation of the officer’s actions.
You’re stringing together things I said in different contexts, but I take your point. I agree there were other options but when the police are involved then I think most options immediately come off the table. She clearly should have complied and he clearly … well I think he clearly had no other options. He’s police, not a counselor, not a parent. It’s like saying a gun should cut bread - that’s just not what that tool is used for. She wasn’t complying, he got her to comply. I don’t expect police to be Trouble Teen Counselors. I expect them to detain and arrest Bad People.
That’s politics. Politics is all about perception.
‘This young person, who has recently gone through severe emotional trauma, on top of that provided merely by being a teenager, has put herself and others in a very delicate and difficult situation therefore, we should frame our response to her actions appropriately, in order to mitigate possible unpleasant and entirely unnecessary outcomes, as befits our training, professionalism and basic human decency’. Just for starters, like.
(edited to repair cut & paste Yoda-ism)
So… a young girl, disobeying a teacher is a “Bad person” deserving of arrest?
Go straight to jail? Don’t pass go? Don’t get detention or counselling or any of the other myriad responses schools have for disruptive teens: Jail.
