THE POLICE PROBLEM

"If you, my friend, are not acquainted with the juvenile justice system, you will be very shortly," the officer told the child.  Earlier that day, the child allegedly spit at a teacher. Now, he was in handcuffs and a police officer was saying he could end up in jail.  That child — a second grader with autism at a North Carolina school — was ultimately pinned on the floor for 38 minutes, according to body camera video of the incident. At one point, court records say, the officer put his knee in the child's back.  

Jesus christ that is so fucking disgusting. What kind of line is that? Does he think he's in a movie or something? Cops literally live in an alternate reality where they're some kind of action heros or something as they physically assault second graders with autism and threaten them with institutionalization.

Cops were added to schools to stop shootings. All they do is accelerate the school to prison pipeline.

A few bad apples SMH

„Finally a person I can tackle”

This cop

I would have had a hard time restraining myself if I walked into a room with my child handcuffed for spitting.

What a fucking failure of a person to blame their training as the reason they assaulted, bullied, and threatened a seven year old. You don't need training to know that it's wrong.

Furthermore, what the fuck is the point of a SRO in schools in the first place? Especially in a fucking elementary school! We know they don't stop shooters.

Jfc. What the ever loving fuck. These cops and that one school administrator need correcting. I wish we could bring back public shaming and light stoning. Oh you wanna bully kids? Well we gonna put you on blast and throw stones at you cause you're a prick

The officer's excuse is that he only had the training he had to rely on. Putting his knee into the 7 year old's back and trying to scare the shit out of him saying that he's going to get familiar with the juvenile system, etc. etc. Being an overall piece of absolute shit and he's just essentially cowardly blaming his training.

If you need training on how not to be human garbage to a 7 year old then you surely shouldn't be an officer. That officer needs some serious psychological help.

The Texas School to Prison Pipeline

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a combination of (i) school disciplinary actions that remove students from their regular classrooms, such as suspensions, expulsions and alternative school placements, and (ii) the criminalization of student misbehavior, leading to school-based arrests and ticketing, that push Texas students—particularly students of color and special education students—out of Texas’ schools, decreasing their chances of graduating and increasing their chances of entering the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems

It's to get used to children to be subservient to the upcoming Police state.

I remember reading this when it was first published a year and a half ago. It incites just as much rage in me today as it did then.

There are many good cops, and I’ve met quite a few of them over the years. Sometimes in a diner where we’ve shared a coffee and told each other tall tales. Sometimes when I done fucked up. But shit like this, the protests more recently, and all the dirty kills declared clean shoots are why I consider any cop I don’t know personally, a threat. The Cult of the Thin Blue Line needs to clean their shit up.

I was raised to respect and look up to law enforcement. They were who I was taught to go to when there was trouble and I didn’t know what to do. Now, more and more, I find myself agreeing with NWA.

And on today’s episode of “WTF America”…

Pretty long article, talks about the problem at length. Worth a read.

Some points:

• Atlanta Public Schools police department as an example where student arrests were high until 2018, when they course corrected: "They trained their SROs to focus on helping students to reach graduation, rather than making arrests." Mentions elsewhere in article: "Ron Applin, chief of police for Atlanta Public Schools, says they've never arrested an elementary school child in his six years running the department."

• Virginia as having a statewide problem where their elementary student arrest rate is absurdly high (sad lol???) : "Virginia has taken a different approach. Schools there arrested kids in elementary schools at five times the rate for the U.S. overall during the 2017-2018 school year, according to CBS News' analysis of Education Department data."

• Points out that low-income students, students of color, and students with disability are the most at risk for being arrested.

• Points out the perspective of SROs (school resource officers) have toward their students is dependent on their economic status:

SROs who worked with low-income students and students of color "define the threat as students themselves," Kupchik (sociology and criminal justice professor at University of Delaware) said. "Whereas the SROs who work in wealthier, whiter school areas define the threat as something external that can happen to the children."

"It's an external threat for the more privileged kids," Kupchik said. "As opposed to students in the schools with more students of color, low-income students, where they're seen as the threats themselves."

• Provides an example of the response from the federal government: "The U.S. Department of Education issued new guidance on school discipline in July, requiring school officials to evaluate a student with disabilities before disciplining them."

• Provides an example of the response from a local government: "On Thursday, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, from Houston, introduced a resolution to encourage local and state governments to prohibit the physical restraining of elementary school-age children."

• Article questions whether SROs even make schools safer: "There is some disagreement [among experts]," Kupchik said. "There have been some studies showing that police officers in schools can prevent some crime and misbehavior, but there are far greater numbers of studies finding the opposite, that they either have no impact or in some cases can increase crime. What they do all show consistently is that while we're not sure about any benefits, there are clear and consistent problems with putting police in schools."

• Article closes out by talking about not only the negative impact of police actions themselves and the trauma it inflicts in the moment, but the potential future effects of said trauma: "The father of one child told CBS News Colorado his child, who was arrested at age 5 and had documented disabilities, "regressed significantly" after the incident and even had to move to a residential treatment facility to receive more intensive care."

The problem is we don't pay cops MORE MONEY so they can get proper training of how NOT to Physically Assault little children!

I'm guilty for insisting that it's good to learn life lessons at a young age.