A viral video of Florida officers arresting a child with special needs emerges.
What We Know:
- On Monday, a video from December 2018 began circulating on social media of an 8-year-old boy, previously diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disabilities, being handcuffed and arrested by police in Key West, Fla. Prior to the incident, the school had created an Individualized Education Program tailored to his needs.
- The bodycam footage was shared by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, the family’s attorney, and shows the child being threatened with jail before officers try to put him in handcuffs, which fall off because his wrists are too little.
Unbelievable!! @KWPOLICE used “scared straight” tactics on 8yo boy with special needs. He's 3.5 ft tall and 64 lbs, but they thought it was appropriate to handcuff and transport him to an adult prison for processing!! He was so small the cuffs fell off his wrists! pic.twitter.com/iSTlXdKas6
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) August 10, 2020
- According to the police report, they were called to the school after the boy tried to hit a teacher. The teacher asked the child to sit down correctly and when the boy refused to follow instructions, she tried to make him sit by her. She alleges the boy began using profanities, making threats, and punched her in the chest. The police report did not state if the teacher or if the police were aware of his condition.
- “Instead of honoring and fulfilling that plan, the school placed him with a substitute teacher who had no awareness or concern about his needs and who escalated the situation by using her hands to forcibly move him,” Crump said. “This is a heartbreaking example of how our educational and policing systems train children to be criminals by treating them like criminals.”
- The boy was taken to the juvenile detention center, where he was DNA-swabbed, fingerprinted, and had his mugshot taken before being charged with a felony battery. The boy’s mother, Bianca N. Digennaro, spent months fighting the charges before they were finally dismissed.
“My son has a disability and the authorities tried to make him a criminal,” Digennaro said during a virtual news conference with Crump. “I’m here for my son because I refuse to let them make him a convicted felon at the age of 8, just because he was having a mental breakdown.”
- Digennaro and her attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against the police department claiming that the school district violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and that the school should have intervened. The child had been previously diagnosed with ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, depression, and anxiety. He was on medication at the time of the incident.
- According to the report by the Miami Herald, Key West Police Chief Sean T. Brandenburg said Monday that the officers involved didn’t do anything wrong. “Based on the report, standard operating procedures were followed,” Brandenburg said.
Crump, who is also the attorney for the family of George Floyd, will be handling the federal lawsuit with Pennsylvania lawyer Devon Jacobs against the police department.
