7-Year-Old Handcuffed At School For Acting Up A Bit; Teachers Under Attack, Classrooms Becoming Violent
CHRYSTAL MCCADDEN, MOTHER OF A 7-YEAR-OLD KID WHO WAS HANDCUFFED BY A POLICE: I was told that when he walked in, he told my son "If you do not sit down, I am going to handcuff you."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: This is cell phone video shot by Chrystal McCadden as she walked into Brownell Stem Academy. Her son handcuffed behind his back. McCadden said the officer could not release her son because he did not have a key.</s>MCCADDEN: He do not deserve to be in handcuffs. He ain`t in here with no knife. He ain`t in here with no gun.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: The officer eventually got a key and released her son. McCadden asked her son about what happened.</s>MCCADDEN: The first thing he said, "Mom, I did not kick. I was kicking the cart. I was kicking the cart."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: The officer used handcuffs to restrain the child to prevent injury to the child or others.</s>MCCADDEN: I do not want a kid to feel like, "If I do something wrong, I am going to get handcuffed."</s>PINSKY: The mom further goes on to say the son has ADHD but has never been violent. Back with Sam, Rolonda, Mike, John, and Areva. So, we talked earlier about teachers being called in the resources officers, because they cannot seem to handle the children. John, I go out to you. What is it that is going on? Do you have a sense of why adults having difficulty controlling classrooms?</s>CARDILLO: Well, you know, in this case, it was a matter of protocol and obviously very traumatic for a 7-year-old to be handcuffed. It is a bad visual.</s>PINSKY: It is a big day. John Cardillo said too much force. Too much force being used. OK.</s>CARDILLO: Well, I am not saying too much force.</s>PINSKY: OK.</s>CARDILLO: There was -- hold on. There is a reason. There is a reason you guys might actually agree. One of the things I read was that when the call was made to the officer, it was alleged the child was trying to hurt himself. And, you are trained to restrain the child and you train at the hands are the path to injury. So, while it looks bad and I know it is traumatic, it probably was safest for everyone concerned, including the child --</s>MARTIN: No.</s>CARDILLO: But not having a key was ridiculous.</s>PINSKY: You know, Areva --</s>MARTIN: There are some things Dr. Drew that should never be done.</s>PINSKY: Yes.</s>MARTIN: Putting handcuffs on a 7-year-old, can we just agree in this country? We should never do that. We have to figure outweighs to teach children to engage in appropriate behavior without criminalizing them at 7 years old.</s>PINSKY: I have been saying --</s>WATTS: Traumatic.</s>PINSKY: Yes. And, I have been saying a lot on this show, we used to use restraints in psychiatric hospitals and we agreed in the community and establishment, the medical community agreed, this is barbaric. I mean this is -- it is a failure when we have done that. It is a failure.</s>WATTS: Why would not they like put him in a separate room as opposed to put him in handcuffs?</s>PINSKY: Well -- yes, ma`am. Go ahead.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, my point is that, if you cannot control a 7-year-old without putting him in handcuffs, then you do not need to be in the classroom. You do not need to be the peace officer at school. You need to go sit down somewhere, OK? A 7-year-old, you traumatize them for life. You are teaching that child that he is going to go to prison. It is unacceptable on any level.</s>PINSKY: Have you been a teacher?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was a substitute teacher. Yes.</s>PINSKY: What age group did you work with?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: I worked for kindergarten all the way up to 14-year-olds. And, I found that 14-year-olds were too much for me to handle, so I stopped.</s>PINSKY: Well, it looked like that was 14-year-old that we were looking at in that first tape. Do you have any insight or point of view that is different than we have been discussing here?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I worked with Special Ed and those children they do get a little --</s>PINSKY: Yes, when I saw that substitute teacher the way she sort of stayed calm and centered and hung in, that is how you are trained to behave, right?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: You have to keep it controlled. And, in the case like that, she should have gotten up and left the classroom and gotten some help, because he could have bashed her in the head very easily.</s>PINSKY: But, he could have hurt the other kids just as well.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.</s>PINSKY: I mean she hung in with them.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: But, she was a tiny little woman, and I am sorry, I would not have stayed in there. I would have gotten help. But when you are over powered like that, you have to get help because that situation was completely out of control. It just should not have happened.</s>CATHERWOOD: Well, and then the question I guess that is asked is, "When you take the responsibility out of the teachers hands and an officer or resource officer of some sort is called, what do you do?" I mean, we are saying -- everyone can agree that it starts at home and it starts with parenting, it starts with getting to the root of whatever problem is involved in this child, but we are now at the point of no return.</s>PINSKY: Yes.</s>CATHERWOOD: We are now at the point where the guy is holding a chair up. We are now at the point where, you know, students are fighting in a classroom. How can you fault -- and I am not saying, you know, making excuse --</s>PINSKY: Well, listen, Mike.</s>CATHERWOOD: -- but if you are called as an officer and you show up and a guy is holding a chair above his head, I mean --</s>MARTIN: We have to be able to distinguish Mike between that video where someone is holding a chair threatening harm --</s>PINSKY: Than a 7-year-old. MARTIN -- than a 7-year-old that maybe is kicking what we have been told is a cart.</s>CATHERWOOD: Yes.</s>MARTIN: Totally different --</s>CATHERWOOD: And of course -- just like John said, the visual of a 7- year-old being handcuffed, it is disgusting. But at the same time, the argument remains when you are called in and you have been told there is a student whose acting up, he is acting violent maybe towards himself or herself or to other students, I mean, you are coming into the situation with a whole different kind of idea on what is going on than someone whose been in there watching, you know.</s>PINSKY: Let me read what the police chief has told us. He says, quote, "We have initiated and scheduled training for all officers and de- escalation and communication specifically geared to children. I have apologized to the mother for this situation and assured her that we will protect the integrity of this investigation and will be transparent in our findings.</s>SCHACHER: That is great.</s>PINSKY: That is good, Areva, right?</s>MARTIN: That is a great acknowledgement by that police officers that something went wrong in that classroom, and they are going to try to fix it.</s>SCHACHER: Yes.</s>PINSKY: They are going to fix it, yes.</s>MARTIN: They are going to try to fix it.</s>PINSKY: Which is good.</s>MARTIN: That is what important for themselves.</s>PINSKY: All right. Let us leave it at that. One thing -- I am just going to leave it at that. We can go on and on about this, but I am going to go to the next topic, which is Robin Williams. We got new information on his depression, his suicide. His wife said, it was not depression per se. It was a complex neurological disorder. I will explain it after this.