(Newswire.net — August 4, 2015) — American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against a Kentucky deputy sheriff who handcuffed two children with learning disabilities as a punishment for not following his instructions.
An eight-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl were so small and skinny that Kevin Sumner, Kenton County Sheriff’s deputy, locked adult-sized handcuffs around their biceps and forced their hands behind their backs.
Although the incident occurred in fall of 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union filed charges Monday, after a video emerged, showing the officer traumatizing children.
“Shackling children is not okay. It is traumatizing, and in this case it is also illegal,” said Susan Mizner, disability council for the ACLU, in a statement about Monday’s lawsuit.
A 28 second long video, recorded by a staff member at an elementary school in Covington, Kentucky, showed a third-grade Latino boy crying in pain while officer Sumner was pulling and handcuffing him by his biceps behind his back. Reportedly, the child was held in a painful abusive position at least 15 minutes.
According to school documents, the boy suffers from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and has a history of trauma.
“You can do what we asked you to, or you can suffer the consequences,” the deputy says in the video.
“Ow! That hurts!” the child replies, crying.
“Now sit down in that chair like I asked you to,” the deputy says, as the child continues to cry.
The child’s mother said her boy suffers because of the experience, and it is heartbreaking to watch him traumatized by the school security officers.
“It’s hard for him to sleep, he has anxiety, and he is scared of seeing the officer in the school. School should be a safe place for children. It should be a place they look forward to going to. Instead, this has turned into a continuing nightmare for my son,” mother, identified as TR said about her son.
The second plaintiff in the suit, an African-American girl, identified as LG, was handcuffed twice, and held for 20 minutes and 30 minutes. She also has ADHD and other special needs.
According to ACLU’s Mizner, it is not only contra productive, but illegal as well using law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities, adding it serves only to traumatize children.
“It makes behavioral issues worse and interferes with the school’s role in developing appropriate educational and behavioral plans for them,” she said.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the deputy didn’t have adequate training to deal with students who have disabilities.