How about the parents? The article says the mother came to the school, but wasn’t allowed to speak to the child while the police investigated.
This list seems irrelevant to the case, since we have no evidence any of these items was used to do any sort of harm.
What is relevant is the question of whether the provisions of the Baker act (cited to justify the police actions) were met. The article says:
In short, the article strongly suggests that the provisions were not met, and thus that the police were not acting within the law.
Acting like that? Yes.
Since when do schools have rights to make doctor’s appointments for students?
More information on the child:
Baker Act Used Against 7 Year Old: Delusional Parents or Cops in the Wrong?
Bolding mine. If this article is correct, there are some problems with this child that his parents refuse to address, “Well, he’s had tantrums before, but we can fix it!” Obviously, though, they aren’t.
And someone needs to step in. And yes, a seven year old can do a HELL of a lot of damage.
You said he didn’t have any weapon. I was pointing out that a 7-year-old in a classroom has plenty of weapons to hand, should he choose to obtain a weapon. An out-of-control child can certainly cause serious injury using materials at hand; they don’t have to come preequipped with weaponry to do so.
Daniel
The mother has had two previous chances. I don’t know about you, but I’d have my kid in for a mental health eval the first time I was called about a room clearing tantrum. Apparently, these parents didn’t.
The school, btw, cannot say much to defend itself out of privacy concerns. The police, when a minor is involved, is in a similar situation. So we have a situation where the parents can say what they want to the press, but the police and school is limited - gee, I wonder how balanced that story will come out.
We all seem to agree that this kid has problems that need attention, which the parents haven’t been getting him. Your statement here argues that you believe the school has no ability to seek medical/psychological help for the kid, and so in this sort of situation is limited to calling in the police. Is that what you feel?
Obviously true - and obviously didn’t happen in this case. The law that was used requires that there be liklihood of serious injury - not simply the possibility of a 7-year-old doing damage. What do you say about this apparent misapplication of the law?
And I don’t see how what might possibly have happened is relevant. The law, as it should, appears to be based on what does happen.
Why do you keep saying obviously? - do you have additional information not included in that short and incomplete article. Do you have photos of what “tearing up the room” looked like because that sounds like a lot of damage to me and I see nothing “obvious” about that not being the case.
The article doesn’t say that the likelihood of serious injury must be immediate - it is possible that the police and school felt that the child had a long term risk of harming himself or others.
As has previously been noted, there’s no argument that the kid’s tantrums are a problem that needs attention. The issue is the involvement of the police under the Baker act.
This issue according to the Baker act is damage to people, not to the room.
This doesn’t appear to be consistent with the part of the article quoted in post #42.
From here (warning PDF file)
The child may have been a danger to the other children in the classroom during the tantrum. Can anyone say that there was a substantial likelihood that in the near future, he would seriously injure himself or anyone else, if he was turned over to his parents?
I think this situation is the exact opposite of the ultimate purpose of the Baker Act. By setting specific rules around involuntary commitment, the Act says that unless you are at near term risk of injuring yourself or others, you cannot be committed against your will. Stomping on a teacher’s foot does not mean that there is any significant likelihood that this kid would attack anyone else after being sent home. If he’s a danger to the other students, suspend him or expel him from the school.
This is what I’m referring to - where we are talking about the amount of damage that could be done to the room - and where you said it was “obviously” not the case - I do not see that the context of this is the Baker Act at all.
I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression about what I meant by damage. This came up in the context of damage possible due to the use of a weapon, or weapon-like object. I continue to believe that the significant issue here is that of police intervention under the Baker act. Damage to the room isn’t relevant to this, since what’s required is the liklihood of serious injury.
In a free society, the right of the police to confine someone against his (or in the case of a minor, his parents’) will and without judicial proceedings needs to be very carefully controlled. It seems clear that the language of the Baker act seeks to exercise that control, by requiring a high chance of serious bodily harm for the police to act. In this case we have no evidence of the necessary high chance of serious injury.
Attempts to justify this police action by citing what could have happened had the kid used some object in the room as a weapon, or what might happen at some unspecified time in the future have the effect of supporting an action that looks to be outside the law, and which if allowed to stand could become a very dangerous precedent.
I don’t think the article provided all the information needed to judge it. If this was the tenth time the kid had caused problems and the police talked to the kid and parents till they were blue in the face with no improvement, maybe they decided it was time to take the kid in. If he resisted peer pressure, teachers, administrators, and even police that would creep me out for starters…it would mean he doesn’t think any rules apply to him and if he felt like poking a fellow student in the eye with a pencil, maybe he would. He already hit an administrator, so why couldn’t he attack other children and seriously hurt them?
My first take was: “Wow, that was probably some very serious shit. The cops KNOW they’re going to be under fire for it, possibly subjected to a lawsuit, but they went ahead and took the kid in against his parents’ wishes anyway. The cops must have had very clear justification for doing it.”
Subsequent reports and trials or whatever may prove that wrong…or not. I’m inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt for the time being.
But that’s not what the Baker Act allows.
He can’t attack other children if he’s been taken away from the school by his parents. The point of the Baker Act is to restrict this sort of involuntary confinement. Restricted to “If we don’t get this guy committed RIGHT NOW, he’s going to seriously hurt himself or someone else.”
I don’t believe for an instant that this kid was suicidal, or threatening to get all stabby with a kitchen knife, if they let him go home with his mom. If he’s too dangerous to let back in the class, don’t let him back in the class.
And I would assume that if he was seriously damaging the room, the risk of damaging himself at seven would be likely - since an object through a window, a chair bouncing back at him off a wall, or a standing whiteboard or projector being pulled down on him all carry the risk of serious injury.
I had a tantrum prone kid - who has THANKFULLY outgrown it (well, at least the rampage state - she’s grown into stomping and shrieking about how ‘unfair’ life is) - and at half the size of a seven year old she once pulled a bookshelf of books down on herself. Each tantrum carried the risk that she would injure herself.
First, it is very likely that there is no way within existing school policy to keep a seven year old out of class: he has a right to an education and the school can’t do any sort of special ed testing without parental consent, and so they have to treat the tantrums as discipline problems, not mental health problems. And most elementary schools do not allow for more than 24-hour suspension for behavior.
Second, if these tantrums are frequent and the parents are dismissing them as non-dangerous/not that big of a deal, I can see a situation where the school is thinking “Something is seriously wrong here. When this kid is raging, he is blind to everything and could very easily hurt himself or others–whether he rages here or at home. His parents are blind to the risk. If he goes home and has other fits (and he has lots of fits) and they ignore it, he could hurt himself or others, and it seems likely that he will.”
This is why I asked about physical ailments: what if the kid were having what were obviously serious seizures and the parents kept saying “oh, he’s just faking” and taking him home? At some point, there needs to be some way to force them to take the child to the doctor. The Bradley Act may not be the right way to do so, but in the absence of a “right way”, I have some sympathy for teachers that are concerned about the best interest of the child. I do think it probably would have been more appropriate to report them to CPS and see if they could have convinced the parents to act.
The effectiveness and enthusiasm of CPS can vary a lot. Its completely possible that in this jurisdiction, the police and Baker Act are less invasive than CPS would be and that the school is trying to protect the child and the parent’s rights.
Another possibility is that he does not have these kinds of tantrums at home. I used to encounter this kind of situation pretty frequently – in raising a child parents learn pretty naturally what the child’s triggers are and generally they avoid them if that is feasible – and it usually is if you have one or two kids. Or possibly this child only reacts in this way in a large group situation, which you don’t have at home.
So they have a child who never does that. Then the child goes to school and the regular classroom is for one reason or another more than that kid can handle – and the school has a kid who does do that. And the parents quite naturally blame the school for provoking their child into this kind of behavior. And the school quite naturally blames the parents, who are obviously in denial about their kid’s behavior.
One of the more effective ways of dealing with this in my own experience is to either have the parent come to school or to have the child videotaped in the classroom. One of the least efffective ways – though it is a natural and understandable human reaction – is to choose up sides, for and against. The problem with calling CPS, invoking the Baker Act, filing a complaint in juvenile court, and similar strategies is that after doing that it is almost impossible ever to regain that family’s trust and cooperation. Sometimes these things are done in an intentional effort to lose those things and simply get rid of the problem (at least in my experience) but one way or the other they amount to the nuclear option and are therefore not advisable.
There is no reason to assume that this child has a mental health problem on the basis of tantrum throwing – tantrums are a frequent result of an inappropriate placement in early elementary school. They can also stem from any number of stressful events in the home as well without being in any way a sign of mental illness.