Re:Video shows 10-year-old autistic boy getting arrested at ...
by dvdhnt on Thursday April 20, 2017 @11:57AM
(#14157836)
You're right.
I'll go further and say that the very concept of defaulting X offense to Y level is flawed as it does not respect context. This is self-serving on the part of the legal system - we often see crimes lawyered down dramatically from automatic jail time to a small fine. It hurts those who are ignorant, can't afford a lawyer, or both.
In the case of a special needs student, afflicted by a condition that professionals know can include lashing out physically, there's no damn reason to treat/charge this kid as a felon. Once more, a school should be a nurturing environment aimed at educating, not a stand-in sting operation.
Key passage: "she and her son had been called into the school for state standardizing testing April 12; while they were there, she said, officers arrested her son for an incident that occurred in October"
Why is the school having children arrested without parental notification? Why is the school deceptively luring a student into the school to be arrested? Why didn't the police just arrest him at home?
The policeman may or may not have any context re: WTF is going on. He has a warrant an an obligation to act, and without context he's going to assume the worst.
This is a failure of the system. If a 10 year old child is doing something that rises to a felony, there should be an intervention involving child protective services and social workers. The police should be the last line of intervention, as they are by nature a blunt instrument not equipped to handle children in this context.