Girl arrested for doodles!

[Jason Tandro]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/18/new.york.doodle.arrest/index.html?hpt=C1

(CNN) -- There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 " scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.
Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.
Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates.
"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn't believe it," Alexa recalled. "I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person."
Alexa is no longer facing suspension, according a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education. Still, the case of the doodling preteen is raising concerns about the use of zero tolerance policies in schools.
I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person.
--Alexa Gonzalez
Critics say schools and police have gone too far, overreacting and using well-intended rules for incidents involving nonviolent offenses such as drawing on desks, writing on other school property or talking back to teachers.
"We are arresting them at younger and younger ages [in cases] that used to be covered with a trip to the principal's office, not sending children to jail," said Emma Jordan-Simpson, executive director of the Children's Defense Fund, a national children's advocacy group.
There aren't any national studies documenting how often minors become involved with police for nonviolent crimes in schools. Tracking the incidents depends on how individual schools keep records. Much of the information remains private, since it involves juveniles.
But one thing is sure: Alexa's case isn't the first in the New York area. One of the first cases to gain national notoriety was that of Chelsea Fraser. In 2007, the 13-year-old wrote "Okay" on her desk, and police handcuffed and arrested her. She was one of several students arrested in the class that day; the others were accused of plastering the walls with stickers.
At schools across the country, police are being asked to step in. In November, a food fight at a middle school in Chicago, Illinois, resulted in the arrests of 25 children, some as young as 11, according to the Chicago Police Department.
The Strategy Center, a California-based civil rights group that tracks zero tolerance policies, found that at least 12,000 tickets were issued to tardy or truant students by Los Angeles Police Department and school security officers in 2008. The tickets tarnished students' records and brought them into the juvenile court system, with fines of up to $250 for repeat offenders.
The Strategy Center opposes the system. "The theory is that if we fine them, then they won't be late again," said Manuel Criollo, lead organizer of the "No to Pre-Prison" campaign at The Strategy Center. "But they just end up not going to school at all."
His group is trying to stop the LAPD and the school district from issuing the tickets. The Los Angeles School District says the policy is designed to reduce absenteeism.
And another California school -- Highland High School in Palmdale -- found that issuing tardiness tickets drastically cut the number of pupils being late for class and helped tone down disruptive behavior. The fifth ticket issued landed a student in juvenile traffic court.
In 1998, New York City took its zero tolerance policies to the next level, placing school security officers under the New York City Police Department. Today, there are nearly 5,000 employees in the NYPD School Safety Division. Most are not police officers, but that number exceeds the total police force in Washington, D.C.
In contrast, there are only about 3,000 counselors in New York City's public school system. Critics of zero tolerance policies say more attention should be paid to social work, counseling and therapy.
"Instead of a graduated discipline approach, we see ... expulsions at the drop of a hat," said Donna Lieberman, an attorney with the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
We see ... expulsions at the drop of a hat.
--Donna Lieberman, ACLU attorney
"If they have been suspended once, their likelihood of being pushed out of the school increases," she said. "They may end up in jail at some point in their life."
One of Lieberman's clients was in sixth grade when police arrested her in 2007 for doodling with her friend in class. The child, called M.M. in court filings to protect her identity, tried to get tissues to remove the marks, a complaint states.
Lieberman says police subjected M.M. to unlawful search and seizure. A class-action lawsuit, filed in January on behalf of five juveniles, is pending. It maintains that inadequately trained and poorly supervised police personnel are aggressive toward students when no criminal activity is taking place.
Several studies have confirmed that the time an expelled child spends away from school increases the chance that child will drop out and wind up in the criminal justice system, according to a January 2010 study from the Advancement Project, a legal action group.
Alexa Gonzalez missed three days of school because of her arrest. She spent those days throwing up, and it was a challenge to catch up on her homework when she returned to school, she said. Her mother says she had never been in trouble before the doodling incident.
New York attorney Joe Rosenthal, who is representing Alexa, plans to file a lawsuit accusing police and school officials of violating Alexa's constitutional rights. New York City Department of Education officials declined to comment specifically on any possible legal matters.
"Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students," said Margie Feinberg, an education department spokeswoman.
Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students.
--Margie Feinberg, New York City Department of Education spokeswoman
RELATED TOPICS
Juvenile Justice
American Civil Liberties Union
New York City Police Department
Several media outlets have reported that school officials admitted the arrest was a "mistake," but when asked by CNN, Feinberg declined to comment specifically on the incident. She referred CNN to the NYPD.
The NYPD did not return CNN's repeated phone calls and e-mails. It is unknown whether charges will be pressed against Alexa.
Kenneth Trump, a security expert who founded the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, said focusing on security is essential to the safety of other students. He said zero tolerance policies can work if "common sense is applied."
Michael Soguero recalls being arrested himself in 2005 when, as principal at Bronx Guild School, he tried to stop an officer from handcuffing one of his students. A charge of assault against him was later dropped. He says police working in schools need specific training on how to work with children.
In Clayton County, Georgia, juvenile court judge Steven Teske is working to reshape zero tolerance policies in schools. He wants the courts to be a last resort. In 2003, he created a program in Clayton County's schools that distinguishes felonies from misdemeanors.
The result? The number of students detained by the school fell by 83 percent, his report found. The number of weapons detected on campus declined by 73 percent.
Last week, after hearing about 12-year-old Alexa's arrest in New York, he wasn't shocked.
"There is zero intelligence when you start applying zero tolerance across the board," he said. "Stupid and ridiculous things start happening."

[Freedan]

For Christ's sake.

This is why I have so little respect for authority figures, be they principals, police or politicians. Give someone any amount of power, and they're sure to abuse it.

I hope the schools are proud of themselves. They traumatize kids over nothing, and if anything, drive them to more bad behaviour.

And hats off to the cops, too. It's nice to know we have such fine officers 'to serve and protect' us, keeping us safe from kids drawing on their desks and putting stickers on the wall. The unnecessary use of handcuffs is always a nice touch.

As if I needed another reason to dislike police officers.

[Jason Tandro]

Hey, now there are plenty of idiot cops out there, but keep in mind, most of the time even the cops hate enforcing the idiotic laws out there, but it's their job. Most cops are decent hardworking guys. You're bound to get a bad seed or two.

[Freedan]

Deep down, I know most cops are good people. But they're public servants, and should hold their own kind to a higher standard than this.

Whenever I hear a story about an officer shooting someone with a taser multiple times without cause, arresting kids over nothing like this, or generally abusing their power, it makes me sick. As far as I'm concerned, as public servants, they're representative of their police department. The actions of one asshole officer reflect poorly on them all.

The fact that there's almost never an appropriate punishment doesn't help. I know cops look out for cops, but it gets pretty ridiculous when someone does something horribly wrong, and everyone else rallies around them. At the very worst, they're suspended with pay, when in some cases, what they do should be considered criminal.

[EverPhoenix]

WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. WRONG. WITH. THESE PEOPLE!

seriously, they are just kids. and its not like what they did was really that evil. drawing on a desk? make them stay back and clean all the crap off the desks in the classroom. for one, it's relevant. second, it doesnt result in them getting a record, or the destruction of all their confidence. honestly, what the fuck. if i had kids and one of them was handcuffed for something like that, i'd find absolutely EVERYTHING i could to sue the school, the people who wrote the laws, and probably everyone else who was in any way involved. sure, if the officers are doing their job thats one thing, but anyone should have enough brains to realise that what they are doing is just insane.

what effect this will have on kids, in my opinion, isnt that they wont ever draw on desks or be late to school - it might well do that, but if they already have a record for being late, and if they got arrested for it, they are going to harbour a lot of ill will towards the school and the police. and given that it is america, where one can purchase firearms at every second walmart, things will no doubt get fishy if some minor aspect of the child's life pushes them one inch too far.

it wouldnt surprise me if the police were mistreating them, either. as freedan said, police officers are generally good people, its just the few who give them a bad reputation. but wouldnt you be pissed off if you were an officer, and you had to go handcuff a 12 year old because they drew on their desk?

its stories like this that really make me wonder about america. the self-proclaimed "best country in the world" deems it necessary to take legal action against kids who are late and write on their desks. if that is the current standard, the next logical step would be going back in time a few hundred years, where capital punishment was dealt out without exception to someone who stole a loaf of bread to feed his staving family

[Miss Prime Blue]

Well, it's good to know that these evil "doodlers" get subjected to the same treatment as criminals.

What idiots.

Didn't they realize or even care they were arresting a child?

[Dark_Gaia]

wow thats some amazingly poor judgement lol

[inferiare]

EverPhoenix wrote:

and given that it is america, where one can purchase firearms at every second walmart, things will no doubt get fishy if some minor aspect of the child's life pushes them one inch too far.

Minors aren't allowed to purchase firearms here.

That said, what the fuck. OH WE'LL CERTAINLY LOWER CRIME RATES IF WE ARREST KIDS NOW FOR DOING INANE SHIT THAT EVERY KID DOES IN SCHOOL HUR HUR WE'RE RETARDS!

Yeah, good job at showing your ineptitude at dealing with children, fucking lawmakers. "Zero tolerance" my ass. This is just "Zero Intelligence".

[EverPhoenix]

rainichan wrote:

EverPhoenix wrote: and given that it is america, where one can purchase firearms at every second walmart, things will no doubt get fishy if some minor aspect of the child's life pushes them one inch too far. Minors aren't allowed to purchase firearms here. That said, what the fuck. OH WE'LL CERTAINLY LOWER CRIME RATES IF WE ARREST KIDS NOW FOR DOING INANE SHIT THAT EVERY KID DOES IN SCHOOL HUR HUR WE'RE RETARDS! Yeah, good job at showing your ineptitude at dealing with children, fucking lawmakers. "Zero tolerance" my ass. This is just "Zero Intelligence".

minors may have older friends without criminal records. as they are now tainted for life. whoever invented these rules should have their own children arrested. hooray for ironic punishments

[Lenc]

Hooray its about time they did something to those little brats! Doodling on paper, tables, walls, ground and what not.

Those kids if we let em continue down the horrible path to terrorism would be the end of america! We must arrest and sue em NOW!

/sarcasm

[Mantaray]

*sigh*

this is what happens when...
oh forget it -_-

adults are stupid.

[Dark_Gaia]

@ adults are stupid.
omfg i rekon! how stupid is einstein?! >< hehe

[Mantaray]

Dark_Gaia wrote:

@ adults are stupid. omfg i rekon! how stupid is einstein?! >< hehe

einstein was stupid cause he made stupid science even harder by adding math to it

[Dark_Gaia]

lol and hes stupid cos he understands it

[inferiare]

sora-mage wrote:

*sigh* this is what happens when... oh forget it -_- adults are stupid.

No, adults in politics are stupid.