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Cops Cuff 7-Year-Old Special-Ed Student
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 21, 2011
Modified Apr 21, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 21, 2011
Modified Apr 21, 2011
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The NYPD has a zero-tolerance policy toward students, and hasn't hesitated to cart kids out of school in handcuffs for such offenses as doodling on their desks. But one Queens mother thinks the NYPD went too far when they dragged her 7-year-old son out of his special-ed class in handcuffs. The Daily News reports that Joseph Anderson, a first-grader at P.S. 153 in Maspeth, had been wetting himself throughout the morning on April 13th, and then became upset when he was dyeing Easter eggs and "the color on the egg he was painting didn't look the way he wanted." Yes, it's a sad story.
His mom, Jessica Anderson, says teachers threatened to send him to the hospital if he didn't calm down, and that's when Joseph jumped on the table and yelled, "I want my mommy!" So the school called her to come pick him up, but as she raced there from her job in Manhattan, administrators called in a cop to handcuff Joseph because, according to an NYPD spokesman, "he was a danger to himself and others in the classroom. He started spitting and cursing at the officers. The handcuffs were used to restrain the child because of his behavior. He was a danger to himself."
By the time Anderson got to the school, her son had already been taken to Elmhurst hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, making this the third time the school has sent him there. Poor Joseph suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, delayed speech and emotional problems. Anderson tells the News that when she arrived at the hospital, "I was crying. I broke down. They know that my son is special ed. It's like they're trying to get rid of him, and it worked because I'm not sending him back there."
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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