If the police had to be called in (assume the parents couldn’t be reached), the child must have been a danger to himself and others and was beyond the control of the teacher and principle …. but pepper spray seems to be extreme. I think I would be calling the school counselor who should have some experience in dealing with special needs child.
first concern, how was he out of control? he was sitting ontop a shelf… sounds to me like he was not hurting anyone… they could have just waited for the parents to arrive or special counselor to get the kid down… calling the cops was the wrong thing to do.. now you could have detrimented the kid against the police because of the action… 7 yr olds, have a great memory…
The school shouldn’t have involved the police. When police get involved they do “police” things. It’s part of the training. I wasn’t there, so I’m not sure what they child was doing to have the police called, but it sounds like the teacher should have worked with the student and stood next to the cabinet and calming used the deescalation techniques. Call police, well then— you got police.
A 7-year-old? Really? An adult cannot handle a 7-year-old without pepper spray?
Agreed. And if they didn’t have pepper spray? bean bag round? rubber bullets? billy club?
Well, you know how dangerous a seven-year-old can be when he’s running wild with a dictionary in his hand!
I would like to know what was going through the officer’s mind as he was weighing his options.
Probably something like… “I wanna use the pepper spray! I wanna use the pepper spray!”
“Set tazer to stun!”
If the police had to be called in (assume the parents couldn’t be reached), the child must have been a danger to himself and others and was beyond the control of the teacher and principle …. but pepper spray seems to be extreme. I think I would be calling the school counselor who should have some experience in dealing with special needs child.
“Deputy Chief Mike Callagy defended Heald’s actions, saying the boy was out of control.” Quick, if this guy has kids, call Family Services!
first concern, how was he out of control? he was sitting ontop a shelf… sounds to me like he was not hurting anyone… they could have just waited for the parents to arrive or special counselor to get the kid down… calling the cops was the wrong thing to do.. now you could have detrimented the kid against the police because of the action… 7 yr olds, have a great memory…
The school shouldn’t have involved the police. When police get involved they do “police” things. It’s part of the training. I wasn’t there, so I’m not sure what they child was doing to have the police called, but it sounds like the teacher should have worked with the student and stood next to the cabinet and calming used the deescalation techniques. Call police, well then— you got police.