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88381ShaunKingshaun-kingshaun-kingShaun Kingshaunkingfamily@gmail.com2019-01-30 16:30:57
Parental Warning: This column contains strong language.
Several months ago, thousands of you joined me in fighting for justice for Kaia Rolle, the 6-year-old girl from Orlando, Florida who was outrageously arrested, handcuffed, put in a police car, and jailed after throwing a tantrum at her elementary school. We made tens of thousands of phone calls to the school district and police department, and in a matter of days, the officer was fired.
But until now, we had not seen the absolutely infuriating video of this arrest. I don’t know what I expected. Of course it was always destined to be horrible, but...
Well written!!! Every bit of the truth.
I’ve worked with children in probably very similar situations, as a paraprofessional we’re trained to work with escalated behaviors, and we’re especially taught that the goal is DE ESCALATION. The point of this is to limit the possibility of trauma. No one had any concern for that girl’s situation which probably goes much deeper than throwing tantrums. We have a serious lack of compassion in our society. I’ve been punched, had my clothes ripped, bitten, but never has that made me want to help a child less, in fact I’ve probably felt a need to help the kid even more. Kids need to know, as educators, we have their backs no matter what. They need to know we’ll fight for them no matter what. That’s how you become effective in helping these types of students. Not to mention we have a serious lack of compassion and outreach for mentally ill people with ppl with social struggles. I’ve literally been attacked by a clearly mentally ill guy on the train, and I still didn’t call the cops because I knew they wouldn’t have compassion for a homeless mentally ill black guy. Sometimes you can be compassionate by not calling the cops, I see a lot of ppl saying that girl needed to get arrested to learn about consequences but our cops don’t help, they arrest you and put you in jail and put you in jail again especially if you’re a person of color
Seeing this video made me cry in anger and because my heart hurt for this beautiful future Queen who should never know at the age of 6( or at any age for that matter) what it feels like to be cuffed, arrested, put in the back of a police car and to have adults she trusted and who are entrusted with caring for our children (teachers, school administrators and the police) treat her like a criminal for having a tantrum. Children have tantrums and it’s our job as adults to calm them and then to find the root of their emotional outburst. It is not our job to criminalize emotional outbursts. I hope she gets the help she will definitely need to deal with such a traumatizing event and all the confusion that’s going to come as she becomes more aware of what really happened to her that terrible day. As a mother, I wanted to reach through my phone and strangle that officer and as a human being I wanted to just carry her away and protect her.