Colorado police pepper-spray angry 8-year-old boy after violent tantrum at elementary school
Cops defend use of pepper spray on 8-year-old during tantrum; boy threatened to stab teachers
Here are the facts: Aidan went to school that day; Aidan got mad; Aidan started cursing and threatening teachers; Aidan pulled a piece of molding off the wall and in essence had the intent of using it as a weapon; the teachers and the rest of the students barricaded themselves in an office; police was called; Aidan flips out at them and curses them also; Aidan gets pepper sprayed; no one gets hurt.
Those are facts that have not been disputed by either side. The kid himself even said this on numerous morning news shows. So what’s the problem? His mother says that they should have handled it differently. His mother says that police need special training to handle kids with behavioral issues. His mother says that there’s something wrong at the school because he never acts like this at home.
Ms. Elliott, allow me to dissect your thoughts on this matter:
1. It should have been handled differently – How could this situation been handled differently? You have someone in front of you who is obviously a danger to others saying that if the teachers come out of the closet he’s going to kill them (terroristic threats) with the stick (assault with a deadly weapon and since it’s on a school campus, automatic felony). Not to mention when police arrives he taunts them and begins threatening them (could be assault on an officer but in this case we’ll go back to terroristic threats). Let’s be honest, had this kid been a grown black man, he would have been shot or at the very least tasered. You should be thankful that all they did was use pepper spray. People have been shot and/or kill by police for a lot less. That’s not to take anything away from police; they’re here to protect us from people who are flipping out because they didn’t get their way.
2. Police need special training to handle kids with behavioral problems – I completely disagree. They have received all the training they need to deal with people. Just because you baby and pacify your kid at home, doesn’t mean the rest of the world should do it. This is the real world. When you do something wrong, there are consequences for your actions. Police are equipped with 3 levels of force to handle situations: gun, taser, and pepper spray. Those 3 items can de-escalate all situations involving 1-5 people per officer. It is not the job of the police to give him candy or a video game to calm him down; it is their job to help the people who were barricaded in the closet.
3. There’s something wrong at the school because he never acts like this at home – Yeah, no one in America believes that one. He may not do this kind of stuff now but I’m 99% sure he has in the past. When he didn’t get his way he would flip out. So you, being the piss poor parent you are, started giving him everything he wanted. THAT’S why he doesn’t act like this at home NOW. The kid said himself on “Good Morning America” that they wouldn’t let him do something and he got mad. The issuance of rules and borders begin at home and at your home there aren’t any so he thinks he has none everywhere. If someone does try to limit him, he flips out thinking that’s going to solve the problem. On the video of the story from GMA, the kid is playing a violent video game that kids his age shouldn’t even play. He even made the statement that he just got the game. So not only did you give him a game intended for mature audiences, but you gave it to him after this whole incident! Rewarding bad behavior only fuels more bad behavior! The funny thing about this one is in the police report of all this you are quoted as saying “Well, you probably deserved it” when he told you they sprayed him.
Now let’s take a look at how this would have been handled when I was 8 years old (it would have never happened because I knew better but let’s play along). I flip out at school and cause teachers to leave or hide in the closet. Police get there and pepper spray me, and then handcuff me. My mom shows up and asks what happened. By this time I’d be praying that the cops would just take me away to jail because I know what my mom would have for me would be far worse. Once mom would get the story, she would kindly ask the police to step away from me for a few minutes. Once the cop would have left, I would have gotten my ass beat!! No morning news shows, no national publicity, no nothing; just a good old fashion beating, which would have been well deserved! That would have been the first and the last time I would have flipped out like that. This was his THIRD time!!!
So allow me to conclude this by saying that this attempt to build some kind of following for a frivolous lawsuit against the police department, school system, or both, has more than backfired on you. You and your kid said he deserved it. My advice is that you first of all thank God I wasn’t the first cop on the scene because by the time you would have gotten there, he would be flopping like a fish out of water from the taser shocks (ignore the bruises that look like a nightstick, he fell….honest!). Second, the cure for an unruly child is being a parent! Spare the rod, spoil the child. Third, you win the “Piss Poor Parent of the Year” award along with being my close encounter of the stupid kind!
