Police defend decision to handcuff boy at T.O. day care

It's a lose-lose situation for police. If they don't restrain him and he hurts himself badly while tearing appart the school they'll be torn apart in the media anyways.

What!!! They forget the pepper spray and taser?

That is about it.

What other choice did they have?
It obviously calmed him down and wasn't that the intention in the first place? If the day care personnel had been able to do that, they would not have called the police.

Can we please let these people do their jobs without bitching about stuff we have just NO clue about? Sure, mistakes are made, they are made everywhere. But not in this case. I'm so tired of cop-bashing.

Sounds perfectly reasonable according to the story. Why do we have to make a fuss about everything?

Wow, that's quite a substantial leap in illogics.

Do you have any understanding about Autism? Do you have ANY idea what Asperger is? What triggers a child to behave like it did, so bad, that the trained staff can not handle him? They have "Special Needs Resource Staff" there, so you'd think THEY know what they are doing.

Btw, the cuffs were adult cuffs. They didn't hurt him and if he wished, or had the ability to think it over, he most likely could have gotten his hands out of them.

With respect, you don't have a clue how bad it can get with children that have Autism or Aspergers.

If you get punched or kicked by a pissed off and irrational 9 year old...it hurts. Hell, when I'm playing with my 6 year old he can throw a good punch.

You get one of these kids, tossing around desks, whipping paint around, are you going to be the calm voice of reason that walks in and takes a kick to your nut sack?

No way.

I have a fried who's an EA with a special needs children. She's been bitten many times( to the point of drawing blood) and even had feces thrown at her.

I think you need to brush up on what these kids are all about when they get angry and irrational and consider if you'd like to be the first one in that room to defuse the situation.

My wife works with Autistic and other special needs kids, she can attest to the need for what happened here, the day care should have called this kids parents first, or had trained staff able to handle the situation before accepting special needs kids into the center

This day care has a special needs staff, maybe they did call the parents first and maybe they said "do what you need to do". We just do not know.

Again, he was cuffed with adult cuffs.

Obviously one who has not been trained properly, as I can attest that anyone who works with special needs kids are trained in restraint and other tactic to handle kids like this, if the daycare did call the parents first the the parents should have gone not the police. I agree with the police and you that it was warranted to them in the given situation though.

And your wife should also know that parents can't always calm down the autistic child & the child still goes on a destructive course damaging the facility and putting himself at risk.

Being disabled doesn't give you a free pass to do whatever you want, despite your age and disability.

When safety and property damage are an issue, the kid gloves need to come off and the situation needs to be resolved NOW.

Egg-zack-ly. And if the kid ends up with a bullet in his head, well then it's just one less retard. What is so hard to understand about that? Fuck.

In the school board I work for we have classrooms, and places in several of our schools that are specificaly catered for special needs kids. All the teachers and EAs have the certifications for that type of environment, but on the rare occasion, something like this can happen. A few years ago, an EA was hit in the head by an Autistic kid that went on a rampage with a wooden chair leg, to this day she still suffers migraines from that hit.

The cops were lucky the kid didn't bite them. They did the right thing with the handcuffs in this situation.