Hawaii School, Police Department On The Verge Of Being Sued For Arresting A Ten-Year-Old Girl Over A Drawing

from the getting-the-most-oppression-bang-for-your-tax-buck dept

Putting cops in schools is never a good idea. It only encourages school administrators to hand over discipline problems to the "proper authorities," which is what administrators used to be until the addition of law enforcement on campus.

Having cops on tap also appears to encourage parents to demand a law enforcement response to disciplinary problems. That's what happened at a school in Hawaii, where a 10-year-old student was arrested over a drawing another student's parent didn't like. The school -- and the police department that performed the arrest -- are on the verge of being sued by the student and the ACLU.

Here's a brief summary of the incident from the ACLU:

On the morning of January 10, 2020, a parent complained to school officials about a sketch N.B. and other students had drawn in response to another student bullying N.B. The parent unreasonably insisted that school officials call the police.

After arriving on school grounds, police interrogated 10-year-old N.B., handcuffed her with excessive force, arrested her without probable cause, and transported her to the police station—all without letting N.B. see or speak with her mother. The police and school officials took these traumatizing actions despite the fact that N.B. was cooperative and did not pose any danger to any person or herself—and without accommodating N.B.’s disability, which was documented with the school.

The demand letter [PDF] from the ACLU goes into greater detail about the incident, including police officers keeping N.B.'s mother, Tamara Taylor, from speaking to her daughter until after the 10-year-old had been cuffed and transported to the police station. The school did not notify Ms. Taylor that her daughter was being questioned by police and made no effort to ensure the student had any counsel (legal or otherwise) advocating for her or ensuring her rights weren't violated.

Everyone involved in this acted like it was out of their hands, an inevitable series of events stemming from one parent's complaint.

On January 10, 2020, Ms. Taylor received a phone call from Honowai Elementary Vice Principal, Ms. Terri Runge, at 8:42 am about N.B. being in a dispute with another student. N.B. had allegedly participated in drawing an offensive sketch of a student in response to that student bullying her. Ms. Runge asked Ms. Taylor to come to the school, because “they are thinking about calling the police.” Ms. Taylor implored Ms. Runge to not do so and told her she would be shortly on her way.

A Honowai staff member and Honolulu Police Officer Ford greeted Ms. Taylor when she arrived at Honowai Elementary and took her to the school office. Officer Ford then began explaining his presence at school by saying that “some parents take things out of proportion and make things bigger than what they are,” apparently referring to the parent who had insisted that the police be called that day.

Here's an inadvertent demonstration of how terrible law enforcement officers are at de-escalation. Rather than seek a resolution that didn't involve use of force, the officers acted like it was beyond their power to placate an angry parent without arresting a pre-teen over a drawing.

And we are still talking about a drawing -- one that targeted a student who had been bullying N.B. The drawing was apparently a collaborative effort with other students. N.B. did not want the drawing shown to the alleged bully, but another student decided to bring it to their attention. The "target" of the drawing was apparently unmoved by it. Neither were their parents. It was the parent of another child that had seen the drawing that had contacted the school and "asked the school to call 911 on N.B."

Meanwhile, as N.B. continued to be separated from her mother by police officers, everyone with the power to shut this down shrugged around the place bemoaning the apparent impossibility of the situation.

A female officer then entered the room and stated that the parent was going to press charges. Ms. Taylor then asked what the charges were for, explained that she would also stand behind her daughter, and that she did not understand what was going on. Instead of answering these questions, Officer Ford stated that he is a father to an 11-year-old and he did not understand why the parent was acting the way she was acting about the situation. The female officer stated that she has a 7- year-old and did not understand either. Vice Principal Runge appeared and described the complainant parent as being “difficult” and that she had never seen a parent act in such way.

No one could understand why a parent could act this way. Well, maybe the parent acted this way because they knew school administrators and police officers could be weaponized this way. So, instead of anyone stepping up to shut this down, N.B. and her mother found themselves surrounded by a bunch of people with a lot of power claiming they were powerless to do anything but what one parent demanded.

When Ms. Taylor asked why they had called the police when she had specifically asked that they not do so, Ms. Runge responded: “Well, it’s the parent’s right if she wants us to call the police for her.” When Ms. Taylor pushed back, arguing that the school had the discretion not to call the police, Ms. Runge simply reiterated that it was the parent’s right to ask the school to do so.

Yes, the parents have that right. And Ms. Taylor is right, the school has the discretion to reject their requests. No one felt like exercising their discretion that day. So, Taylor's daughter was cuffed, put in a police car, and taken to the PD for processing.

Then there's the racial element. Statements were made by administrators and officers that suggest they would have handled this differently if N.B. wasn't black.

Officer Ford confided to Ms. Taylor that they thought it was best for her not to see N.B. because they did not want Ms. Taylor to “beat [N.B.] at the school.”

[...]

Ms. Taylor also expressed dismay about being forced to stay in the room, to which Ms. Runge explained that they had to stop Ms. Taylor because they saw “fire in her eyes.”

[...]

Ms. Runge also explained that she had prevented Ms. Taylor from leaving the room that day because she was concerned that Ms. Taylor would get arrested for intervening and attacking the other parent or the police.

A bunch of powerful people violated rights because they were too powerless to deny a parent's demand for police involvement and too afraid of what an Angry Black Woman might do if allowed to see her child or confront another parent, despite both Ms. Taylor and her child being fully cooperative during this string of rights violations.

The end result was this:

Even assuming the complaining parent wanted to press charges—and assuming there were valid charges that could be brought against N.B.—N.B. could have easily been surrendered to her mother who was at the school. No one else involved in the drawing incident was arrested or interrogated. No charges were ever brought against N.B., who as a ten year old did not intend to commit a crime with a drawing she did not draw alone and did not even want to deliver. N.B.’s detention and false arrest without probable cause violated her rights to be free from unreasonable seizures under the Hawaiʻi and U.S. Constitutions.

[...]

Ms. Taylor and N.B. were singled out because of their race, both perceived and treated as “more dangerous,” less rational, and less worthy of respect for their rights than the non-Black students and parents involved.

Right now, the ACLU and Taylor are only demanding a raft of changes to school and PD policy when it comes to detaining, questioning, and arresting minors. They're also demanding $500,000 in damages. That demand will presumably increase if the city and PD decide they'd rather defend themselves in court rather than make some common sense changes to policy and put another $500k on the taxpayers' tab.

This all could have been avoided if any one of these very powerful people had actually used their power wisely and deployed the discretion they so often claim is necessary to prevent outcomes like this. If this parent really felt police should be involved, they should have made that call themselves. Instead, they chose to weaponize two bureaucracies to achieve their ends: the punishment of a 10-year-old for offending them with a drawing.

Filed Under: arrests, bullying, hawaii, honolulu, honowai elementary, police, school resource officer, students, tamara taylor
Companies: aclu

$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.

Filed Under: kentucky, kevin sumner, police, school resource officer

Ninth Circuit Says No, You Fucking May Not Arrest A Bunch Of Middle School Students To 'Prove A Point'

from the Lack-Of-Respect-(Misdemeanor) dept

The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court has upheld the stripping of immunity from a school resource officer who clearly violated the rights of multiple students, but still felt the need to be told twice by consecutive federal courts.

School is school and kids will get in fights. Some accusations about bullying brought several seventh grade students to the school's office, along with Deputy Luis Ortiz. Ortiz reached the limits of his training and experience extremely quickly when he was unable to determine who was bullying who or why these seventh grade students wouldn't give him the respect he so clearly felt he was owed. So, here's how he made the most (constitutional violations) of a bad situation. From the decision [PDF]:

On October 8, 2013, a group of seventh grade girls (twelve and thirteen year-olds) were handcuffed, arrested, and transported in police vehicles from their middle school campus to the police station. An assistant principal had asked a school resource officer, Sheriff’s Deputy Luis Ortiz, to counsel a group of girls who had been involved in ongoing incidents of bullying and fighting. School officials gathered the girls in a classroom to wait for Deputy Ortiz. The group included both aggressors and victims, and the school did not identify or separate them.

When he arrived on campus, Deputy Ortiz initially intended to verify the information the school had given him and to mediate the conflict. Within minutes, however, Deputy Ortiz concluded that the girls were being unresponsive and disrespectful. He decided to arrest the girls because, as he explained to them, he was not “playing around” and taking them to jail was the easiest way to “prove a point” and “make [them] mature a lot faster.” Deputy Ortiz stated that he did not care “who [was] at fault, who did what” because “it [was] the same, same ticket, same pair of handcuffs.”

Ortiz's decision to arrest a bunch of students to "prove a point" was corroborated by his own recording, which undermines the arguments he raised trying to secure immunity. The court doesn't appear to be pleased it has to handle a case where the defendant is so very clearly in the wrong, but it does what it can to ensure Ortiz will be at least as displeased as the judges are.

There's nothing nice said here about Ortiz's actions and the court sees no reason to hedge its opinion with faint praise for law enforcement in general. At best, it admits handling school situations like these can be complicated, but the complexity of the situation doesn't excuse Ortiz's probable cause-less mass arrest of middle school students.

Deputy Ortiz clearly stated that the justification for the arrests was not the commission of a crime, since he did not “care who is at fault,” nor the school’s special need to maintain campus safety, but rather his own desire to “prove a point” and “make” the students “mature a lot faster.” The arrest of a middle schooler, however, cannot be justified as a scare tactic, a lesson in maturity, or a chastisement for perceived disrespect.

[...]

Deputy Ortiz faced a room of seven seated, mostly quiet middle school girls, and only generalized allegations of fighting and conflict amongst them. Even accounting for what Deputy Ortiz perceived to be nonresponsiveness to his questioning, the full-scale arrests of all seven students, without further inquiry, was both excessively intrusive in light of the girls’ young ages and not reasonably related to the school’s expressed need.

As for any questions about whether or not it had been clearly established officers cannot arrest students to "prove a point," the court quickly dispenses with that discussion:

At the time of the students’ arrest, it was clearly established that a police seizure at the behest of school officials must, at a minimum, be “reasonably related to its purpose, and must not be ‘excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.’” Defendants do not—and indeed, cannot—meaningfully contest Deputy Ortiz’s motivation for the arrests, which he stated multiple times. No reasonable officer could have reasonably believed that the law authorizes the arrest of a group of middle schoolers in order to prove a point.

The court is also unimpressed by the officers' attempt to lie their way into the clear.

Defendants… claim that the students’ behavior in the classroom justified the arrest because there was reason to believe the students would engage in imminent fights. That assertion is belied by the audio record of the encounter, which “quite clearly contradicts the version of the story told by” the officers. The students were mostly silent, only speaking to respond to the questions posed to them. But even taking at face value Deputy Ortiz’s claim that the girls were being disrespectful to him, and whispering among themselves, this conduct in no way rose to the level of probable cause that could have justified their arrests.

In fact, as the court notes, Ortiz never attempted to determine which students were engaged in bullying before arresting them. The three plaintiffs suing him were all victims of the bullying and they were rung up just like the instigators.

There's no ducking the lawsuit. On top of that, Ortiz (and another officer named in the lawsuit) will be facing state claims in addition to the federal civil rights violation allegations. Without a doubt, officers sometimes arrest people simply to "prove a point." But usually they'll do it with a bit more subtlety and try to eliminate any recordings that might undermined their official narrative. Ortiz was so determined to teach a bunch of uncooperative seventh graders a lesson, he completely forgot to make the arrest minimally plausible.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, arrests, bullying, civil liberties, civil rights, luis ortiz, middle school, prove a point, school resource officer