$337,000 Settlement Headed To Elementary School Students Handcuffed By School Resource Officers
from the insurance-premium-increases-will-also-be-paid-for-by-taxpayers dept
Putting cops in schools often turns routine disciplinary issues into police matters. That's a problem. Cops -- given the friendly-spin title of "school resource officers" -- have a limited tool set for handling discipline. It involves shows of authority, deployments of force, and, in this case, adult handcuffs clamped onto an 8-year-old's upper arms. Tiny wrists can't be secured by adult cuffs, so up the arm they go until they more resemble an instrument of torture than a restraint device.
This cuffing was performed by Deputy Kevin Sumner of the Kenton County (KY) Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department claimed the deputy followed policy, but could not produce any policy relevant to the handcuffing of small children. Experts on force/restraint deployment said this cuffing didn't follow any protocol they were aware of. Sheriff Korzenborn insisted (without any evidence) this technique was proper and testified he did not order retraining of officers in child-restraint techniques following the incident.
Last year, a federal court declared this handcuffing to be excessive force. It pointed out the alleged "crime" did not justify the force deployed and, even if it had, the force used was far in excess of what was needed.
Applying the Graham factors, the severity of the “crime” committed by S.R. and L.G. — assault — weighs in their favor. While S.R. kicked a teacher and L.G. tried to and/or did hit a teacher, these are very young children, and their conduct does not call to mind the type of “assault” which would warrant criminal prosecution. Indeed, Sumner testified that “none of what they did was worthy of trying to file a criminal charge.”
The second factor, whether the children posed an immediate threat to themselves or others, weighs in S.R.’s favor. At the time he was handcuffed, S.R. had largely calmed down, Sumner had escorted him to the restroom without incident, and they had returned to the office. While Sumner testified that S.R. swung his elbow towards Sumner, such can hardly be considered a serious physical threat from an unarmed, 54-pound eight-year-old child.
A little over a year later, the two elementary school students will be receiving a payout from Kenton County taxpayers.
On Thursday, a sheriff’s office in Kentucky has agreed to pay more than $337,000 for the painful and unconstitutional handcuffing of elementary school students with disabilities. The two plaintiffs, both of whom were children of color and both of whom have disabilities, were so small that the deputy sheriff locked the handcuffs around the children’s biceps, forcing their hands behind their backs.
Despite the ruling and the settlement agreement, Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn remains unrepentant. He views this settlement as a cowardly capitulation by the company fronting the money for his deputy's misconduct.
In a statement released Nov. 5, Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn said he "never signed off or agreed to settle."
"My understanding is that the insurance company viewed that it was less expensive to settle the case than to continue defending it," he said.
Korzenborn also noted that the settlement came without "any admission of liability" on behalf of the sheriff's office.
Handcuffing children and causing this sort of reaction is just good school policing, according to the sheriff.
After the handcuffings, both children had repeated nightmares, started bed-wetting, and would not let their mothers out of their sight. Both families left the school district, and moved to areas where their children could receive the treatment and accommodations they needed.
This is what the sheriff considers to be a worthwhile punishment for an 8-year-old student who tried to punch his deputy in the arm: a painful, unconstitutional handcuffing followed by a few years of nightmares and family upheaval. It will happen again because Korzenborn believes he -- not the law, not policies, and not the federal court -- is right. He's a law unto himself, and that makes things dangerous for students in the county's schools. And he's a walking advertisement for personal indemnification.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: kentucky, kevin sumner, police, school resource officer
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
HOO! Masnick CHEERS for pirate brats.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Free cash
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fair is Fair
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Judge Dredd
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
I wonder if it's the same group of nut jobs who post here, or some weird trend of trying to distract people from talking about wider social issues on tech sites. If the latter, it's certainly not working.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Settlement money fixes everything. No need to learn any lessons about life or something.
They should at the least have the balls to apologize.
Also, $150k for that?
"Professional Entertainers" can be happy to get a hundred bucks extra for wearing an armbinder.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It is very nice that your blog is providing valuable information to us. I want to aware you toward the ‘Best Colleges for C Students in the U.S.. Get more information through the given link: http://www.helptostudy.com/best-colleges-for-c-students-in-the-us/
If you are interested in reading competitions, scholarships, articles, colleges or universities information and much more, kindly check the given link: http://www.helptostudy.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Well, "professional entertainers" aren't disabled 8-year-old children. There are some things that are slightly worse when done to kids.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
After all...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
what about personal liability?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
if you don't, they will
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A reasonable solution
* child sized hand cuffs
* child appropriate tasers
* flavored pepper spray
* child sized detention cells
By having tools that are specifically designed for children, they could eliminate any inhibition that police and administrators have in using these tools.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Apologize? The system worked just the way they want.
See? Problem solved! ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Free cash
[ link to this | view in thread ]
In a statement released Nov. 5, Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn said he "never signed off or agreed to settle."
"My understanding is that the insurance company viewed that it was less expensive to settle the case than to continue defending it," he said.
Korzenborn also noted that the settlement came without "any admission of liability" on behalf of the sheriff's office."
You didn't agree to settle because you can't see anything wrong with what your officer did to a CHILD. Such fear from a child, perhaps your officers all need to be let go if an 8 yr old presents such a threat to them.
Yes settlement was cheaper because the insurance company knew how many 0's were going to be attached to the eventual settlement paid out to make up for your failure.
No admission of liability???
Did you think we needed that?
THEY CUFFED 8 YR OLD CHILDREN!!
The justification was a thrown elbow??
You need to be run out of office on a rail, the fact you are 10000% behind your idiot officers & refused to have a course saying don't abuse 8 yr olds should have the community TERRIFIED!
If you are willing to back this play how far are we from you standing before cameras saying the 90 yr old woman deserved being shot because she kept jay walking across the street so the officers, in fer for their safety, shot her 30 times.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Judge Dredd
[ link to this | view in thread ]
'You want to defend him? It's on YOUR dime.'
In a statement released Nov. 5, Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn said he "never signed off or agreed to settle."
Ah the empty boasting of a bully. 'I totally would have beat you, but my mom told me I couldn't. Count yourself lucky that she held me back from giving you what you deserve.'
"My understanding is that the insurance company viewed that it was less expensive to settle the case than to continue defending it," he said.
Rather than settle the insurance agency should have started from the outset by stating that the actions involved were not covered by the insurance, and if the department wants to fight it they are going to be paying the bills, and any settlements/fines personally. I suspect his bravado about how it's cowardly to settle would magically vanish at that point.
Korzenborn also noted that the settlement came without "any admission of liability" on behalf of the sheriff's office.
Of course it didn't, because you still don't believe that your cowardly baby in a uniform did anything wrong. Why, that kung-foo master of a child might have left a bruise, he clearly had to be restrained for the good of everyone!
Given even now the thugs with badges refuse to admit wrongdoing if anyone in administration of the school has even the slightest shred of intelligence they'll give said thugs the boot post-haste, because if they keep them on it's not 'will this happen again?' but 'how soon will it happen again?'
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Judge Dredd
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Meet your new neighbor...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A reasonable solution
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Free cash
I wonder if the kids will get the money or does it go to the parents/guardians?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: what about personal liability?
Every parent in the Covington school district should have been at the School Board meetings until the district admitted that Elementary schools DON'T need cops on patrol, and changed policy unambiguously and loudly. Follow up with less cops and more counselors, so that they can use de-escalation tactics that are suited to children, not criminals.
Every resident of Kenton County should have been at the meetings where their County Commissioners (or whoever is in charge, since there appears to be a Kenton County Police and a Kenton County Sheriff, for some reason) discussed the county Sheriff's department, until the Sheriff declared that no officer who felt threatened by an 8-year-old was suitable to be an actual police officer. Follow up with actual *documented* training and actual *documented* accountability. (I know, I'm dreaming.)
No situation that ends like this is ever simple, but surely everyone can agree not to make it worse by the actions of people who need others to "respect my authoritah". We have the TECHNOLOGY to see this kind of nonsense in action, we have the TECHNOLOGY to participate in our local government more easily than ever, and we have the TECHNOLOGY to communicate with our public servants more than ever. We can't fix someone else's county, but we can fix our own.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Hello dere "R1V37H34D"!
Back for a second comment already!
"You" have a 20 month gap to first Feb 14th, 2017. Long gaps (18-20 months) after first and only comment are frequent. My opinion is that the Zombie Master considers that sufficient time to conclude the account has been forgotten, and resurrects them.
Again, doubters: I have a list and you don't. Another thing remarkable about "R1V37H34D" is that it's the ONLY new account I have listed for February 2017. (While I may have missed others, have several from January and March.) You, however, cannot argue with facts, only assert your belief that all these ODD examples don't add up.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: HOO! Masnick CHEERS for pirate brats.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Sounds like you may not have benefitted from these colleges.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: what about personal liability?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Only 40 days left.. Then its **2019!!**
Better start practicing!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Free cash
This is a very sad incident. Do we even know if this sheriff is human?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
While I'm on the subject, since when has it been okay to torture and traumatise small children? What a freak!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It should not exist in the learning process. Children do not deserve such treatment. They must learn, not be abused. If students need examples of essays, they can find them on <a href="https://tooly.io/">Tooly</a>. This has a huge number of examples on any topic. I use it all school life. If you have any questions, then write me a private message.
[ link to this | view in thread ]