No rational judgment of the cops actions can be made from that video. It could either represent an over-reaction with needless restraint, or a highly professional, sensible, an safe reaction to a child acting violently in the throws of a tantrum and unresponsive to reason. It seems like a cop working in a school should have restraints designed for younger kids, but regardless, such a restraint is unlikely to cause any actual pain or harm beyond the kid being upset about it. People are over-reacting to the symbolic imagery of the handcuffs.
PTSD?! What happened that resulted in PTSD for such a young kid?
These days, quite possibly nothing of note. Like ADHD, PTSD is probably another highly over-diagnosed childhood "disability" label slapped onto kids that do poorly in school and act out aggressively. The medical industry loves it for profit reasons, the parents get an excuse and a comforting rationalization, and the school gets extra funds plus a waiver from having the kids test scores count toward their own evaluations under NCLB.
In the world of parenting, and in all other things, there is a thing called "choosing your fights". This officer apparently has no concept of that. Granted, I know nothing else about this case, but it would seem only the most extreme cases would something like this be required... and that would mean something like the kid is trying to stab other kids.
So no adult should ever try to restrain a kid acting violently, unless the kid has a deadly weapon? IF the kid is being aggressive, swinging, throwing things (including expensive equiptment), the teachers and administrators should just back off and run awa if they can't calm him down with "Gee, Jimmy, its not nice to hit."? Handcuffs are not "extreme", they are actually a far safer way to restrain someone than other methods.
It is hard to imagine that such measures would be anywhere as effective as alternative ones designed to calm down the child.
ADHD and PTSD are highly associated with kids throwing aggressive tantrums in which they refuse to calm down and where your alternative methods are often ineffective.
In fact, these supposed "disabilities" are highly over-diagnosed with little in the way of objective symptoms other than aggression and a refusal to listen and cooperate with verbal requests.
laughing dog said:
I wonder why any school adm would want or allow a police officer instead of social worker, counselor or health professional deal with an unarmed young child with such problems who is not posing a dire imminent threat.
Perhaps because they had tried repeatedly in the past to calm this kid down and failed, or because he was being violent (i.e., "behaviors related to his disability") and they aren't trained to deal with that safely, or because stupid laws prohibit them from protecting from doing reasonable things that cops are allowed to do to protect themselves from violent kids.
BTW, note how much the lawyers are playing the "disability" card here. That implies that here is a higher legal bar for restraining "disabled" kids. That would be a rather stupid distinction, given that the "disabilities" in question are often diagnosed by behaviors that make the kid more of a danger to himself and others, and thus more likely to warrant restraint, than non "disabled" kids.
In sum, more details are needed to reveal whether this specific case warranted restraint. But at a more general level, it seems absurd to pretend that there are not kids who, even at age 8 and without a deadly weapon, should still be restrained, or that handcuffs or something similar are particularly extreme or damaging compared to other forms of restraint.
