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Sensitive Topic 9-year-old autistic boy handcuffed at school

I am that which I am

Well-Known Member
A really unfortunate news story. When will the police ever learn how to deal with people that have autism or AS let alone any other mental health disorder.

CTV Ottawa
Published Thursday, February 19, 2015 6:38PM EST
Last Updated Thursday, February 19, 2015 6:54PM EST

The parents of Daniel Ten Oever are used to getting calls from his school.

The nine year old has autism and occasionally acts out in what they call “outbursts.”

But nothing could have prepared them for the call they got Thursday morning. When they arrived at St. Jerome Catholic School in Ottawa’s Riverside South they learned that their nine year old son had been handcuffed by a police officer.

Photos

9-year-old Daniel Ten Oever enjoys his favourite craft at his family home in Ottawa, Feb. 19, 2015

“I immediately started crying,” says his mother, Stephanie Huck. “I was horrified.”

Daniel’s parents were told their son was behaving violently, “throwing down chairs,” says his father Dan Ten Oever.

But they still aren’t sure why the school and the police had to resort to handcuffs.

“My nine year old autistic son is being handcuffed at school. We bring him there and we hope that he's safe and we pick him up on these sorts of circumstances. It's horrendous,” says Huck.

“Normally maybe they just would have kind of cornered him somewhere and just let him calm down in a chair. Try to talk him down a little bit," adds Ten Oever.

The Ottawa Catholic School Board issued a brief statement saying its “protocol for dealing with violent incidents includes ensuring the safety of all students and staff at all times.” It goes on to say “…our staff acted appropriately to ensure the safety of everyone involved.”

The Ottawa Police Service would not comment other than to say officers will use their handcuffs to restrain an individual when necessary regardless of the situation. They will not comment on this specific incedent.

Lynne Thibodeau is the Executive Director of Spectrum Intervention Group, an organization that, among other things, helps parents and schools deal with students with problem behaviours. She says she’s never heard of a student being handcuffed. “We work with many kids with severe problem behaviour, aggression, property destruction, and we don't use restraints," she says.

In a statement, Autism Ontario said "We're surprised to hear about this incident. We've partnered with the Ottawa Police with the creation of their Police Autism Registry. The online registry promotes commmunication and gives police quick access to critical information about a registered person with autism."

Daniel’s parents are still looking for answers from the school board and the police as to why he was handcuffed. But they say the real issue is that schools are trying to integrate children with autism and other special needs without the proper training and resources to back them up. They say autistic children need to go to “regular” schools to learn how to socialize. But when the inevitable problems arise they need to be dealt with appropriately.

In their estimation that does not include being handcuffed by the police. “These people are supposed to serve and protect us and he's already, at 9 years old, scared to be around police officers,” says Ten Oever. “And that's the biggest issue for me is the trauma that he has to go through.”


Read more: 9-year-old autistic boy handcuffed at school | CTV Ottawa News
 
Reading can be overwhelming for me but I glad the CTV link you shared haves a video. Very disappointed at the school board and the cops.

There people in the news article also wrote comments for those are interested.
 
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I don't see much of a reason for them to handcuff a child. You would think that cops would learn other restraint methods for kids instead of just cuffing them. I could see them doing it if the kid was big and strong and being a danger to himself or others at the time but come on, a nine year old? If those cops can't restrain a nine year old without handcuffs then they really don't need to be out there calling themselves protecting people. Somebody who can't physically restrain a nine year old without handcuffs, even if it take one person holding the upper body and one holding the feet wouldn't possibly be able to protect anyone in just about any situation whatsoever.

Also, what happened to common sense? Common sense tells you that you don't handcuff a nine year old unless there are serious extenuating circumstances and it doesn't sound like those circumstances were present. I understand that a kid having a meltdown can be violent. I also understand that there are ways to physically restrain them when needed that don't involve handcuffing. Also, handcuffing someone behind the back, which I'm assuming was done in this situation, can reduce tidal volume and lead to unconsciousness and suffocation. I'm pretty sure that a kid in the middle of a meltdown isn't going to just sit or lay there calmly in cuffs and could easy worm his way into a posture that could cause asphyxiation and unconsciousness that could be interpreted as calming down or even wearing himself out and falling asleep and could easily lead to death.

Not really the best idea out there.
 
Yes I do not know why they had to handcuff him and if they must restrain him in the first place. At least for myself I find it would result in much more discomfort, anxiety and agitation to be restrained or hand-coughed. I find the best thing they could have done is perhaps remove anything he can throw or lash out with (for obvious reasons) and get him to stay in that area until he calmed down on his own. The corner should be big enough for him and give him enough space so he does not feel claustrophobic. The adults can just stand around to make sure he does not go out until he calms down but should refrain from eye contact and touch, since most aspies/Auties don't like that. Or at least those are my thoughts on it from an aspie point of view. One good thing I noticed after rereading the article is that one group for people with AS will work with the police to try to educate and train them better. I hope they go far enough as the reaction from "authorities" was very inappropriate.

I did post a comment on their website but I am pretty sure the mods deleted it, maybe because I called the police *ssh*les. I had a similar interaction with them when they really overreacted and acted wrongfully. Funny enough I was not even having a violent meltdown but had actually shut down. I was 14 at the time. I was often bullied as a child and one day decided that I had enough and left the situation. I ended up going to class early and was visibly upset but did not want to talk about it. The teacher of that class did not understand that or understand that I just wanted to be left alone. Eventually we also had a bit of an argument and I skipped my her class. I think I loitered around the halls for a bit as I began to shut down completely. I did decide however that I wanted to keep going with the rest of my day as normal which would have helped me to come out of it, like most aspies I like predictability and order. So I went to my guitar class whenever it was time for that class. Other than my not talking to other students and really keeping to myself I was not doing anything wrong or abnormal. Then the principle came by and wanted me to go to his office. I was in shut down mode and did not respond. I just wanted to keep playing guitar (which I was not really even doing) and keep going on with my day. An intervention was not necessary. I did not have a good start to the day and was not in a good mood. I gather they got worried about me and what I was going to do. Eventually they evacuate the whole class. One peer that I knew fairly well did try to talk to me and get me to listen to them but I could not, that is what a shutdown is. I was fully conscious of what was happening but I could not bring myself to act upon any of it. After trying to talk to me, to no avail, as I could not respond. They called the police over who tried to talk to me and scream into my ear to get me to move. That just made it worse. Then my mother also came by and was less than useful. She resorted to insulting me, calling me stupid for not listening and had no idea what was going on or what to do about it. The police officers became annoyed and threw me down on my stomach a couple of steps (the room was set up like a theater) and restrained me to the floor while cuffing me. The strange bit is that I was not moving. They could have made me stand up and cuffed me there with ease but no it was better to throw me down a few steps and scrape my face against the floor. They then proceeded to drag me through the entire school, which was probably in lockdown by that time, instead of using the backdoor which was just a few feet away. Then they strip searched me, found nothing of importance and left all of my things on the hood of their car. They put me in the back of their car and scattered all of my belongings over the streets and drove me home. At home my mother continued to question me, call me an idiot, etc. and I just went to my room. Eventually she went away and left me alone when I slowly decompressed. She asked me what happened and I just told her that I could not do anything.

In many ways reading that story had stirred up all of the emotions linked to that incident for me. Where I feel I was unjustly hurt physically, cuffed, and had my things scattered around the streets. They had no reason to act that way and if they had a clue as to how to deal with any complex situation this would not have happened. Sure it would have helped if I were diagnosed with AS (or some variant) but my mother taught me it was not ok to be diagnosed with anything. If you knew my mother you would know why I made sure as hell not to be diagnosed with AS or anything else.
I get their point I was a troubled and trouble (for them) child. I had a lot of issues at school and they tried relentlessly to diagnose me with something. They still did not get the hint though when I attempted to file a child abuse claim against my parents and then a day later told them quite blatantly I lied and that I did not want to do that. I still think they overall acted very inappropriately in my case and in the case of the 9 year old child above and believe something should be done about it. In talking with my partner I noticed that others also feel this way and started other threads to change situations like this. Hopefully we can do something and succeed in changing the way people with AS are handled through the system. I have several other stories about how the system failed in my case but will leave those for another time. Then they wonder why people mistrust the system and go against it.

Sorry it took me such a while to actually post a response to this or my own opinion. I felt I had to post the story and share it with others. But I sometimes have a delayed emotional response to these things of my complex PTSD. But I guess that this is my grain of salt on the matter.
 
You'd think that teachers and cops would have more sense than that. That poor boy is only 9 and he's already scared of cops for life.
 
I had a meltdown once, after I was arrested for something I didn't think was fair. I'm not going into it, but I basically was arrested for fighting back and since I don't mark up easily and am not as well liked as the person I had been fighting back against, they locked me up instead. I lost it about the whole thing and they just threw me in the back of the police car after cuffing me and even though I put my feet through the cuffs so I'd have them in front of me instead, which was more comfortable, I completely went nuts with that meltdown. Screaming and kicking and hitting my head and all. It scared the crap out of the boy who arrested me, who is a nice fellow and only works weekends for the PD and owns a body shop and he's the only one that I ever get to work on our cars about some things because he's good at it and very reasonable with his prices. He's also the only one who I ever let arrest me, and I can do that because I live in a very small town since 2001. Every time I've been arrested down here I've told them to call him to come do it and it's really much less bother for them to do that than it is to fight with me. Plus, the one cop that usually decides that I should be arrested is afraid of hoodoo, and since I'm the hoodoo woman in this town he's scared I'll put a spell on him. Really. Crazy, but true. They call the other guy.

On the way to the jail, that one time I had a meltdown after, the nice guy was driving me there and we talked. I aplogized about the meltdown and told him that I wasn't mad at him at all, and we talked about what had really happened at my house and he agreed that my husband was an *ss and we both agreed that I could get it straightened out in court and we ran by McDonalds and got something to eat and I was much better by the time I got to the jail.

Also, nobody in town knows about my Dx, I don't talk about it much or really even think about it except when I'm posting here. I wasn't dx'd until my 40's and I hadn't ever even heard of AS then really and thought it was just how I was, I had no clue that something was actually wrong with me. I was glad to get the dx though because it helped explain things to me and helped me understand why I have trouble dealing with some things and helped me figure out how best to take care of myself and handle things differently when I need to. I suppose if they had known then he would have taken me to the hospital or something instead lol. That wouldn't have been so great either because our hospital here in town is awful lol.
 
I don't know whether the police did the right thing or not, ethics is after all a difficult topic.

However, I think that often people tend to exploit every circumstance to ensure a police officer is shown in a 'questionable' light. Recently, I saw a video on YouTube where an Australian cop swore and consequently 'bullied' a twelve year old kid. The kid obviously deliberately antagonized the man who's entire job is protect people like him - which is why I think they had the camera on site as well. Demonizing the police force seems to be whats 'hip'.

I think people should be held accountable for their actions regardless of their diagnosis, especially if it endangers other people. Furthermore, its not as if this was the first time he had a physical outburst.

So what, a jerk of a kid who thinks he should have it his way by throwing chairs around gets cuffed. Big whoop.
 
To OliveOilMom
That sounds really bad. I have to wonder what would cause the police to want to arrest you in the first place. In some ways I also hope that your husband is not contributing to those issues and if so that it is something you are or can do something about. One of my ex's got me in a great deal of trouble and eventually I figured out it was best to leave him. In the process of living I also learned to regain control when I shut down or meltdown. There was another thread about the topic of meltdowns and a bit on how to deal with them better.
When saying "I'm sorry" doesn't feel like enough | Page 3 | AspiesCentral.com

To Sev
While I agree that people should take responsiblity for their actions and be held accountable, there is some ethics and a grey area where the person has to be aware, conscious, and in control. This is why most countries include laws and acts for mental health as well as the "not criminally responsible" clause. Like most aspies when melting down the child likely lost control of himself and his actions completely and may not be conscious or aware of what he was doing or what was hapenning. I had to learn to regain control and be conscious when I shut down or meltdown.
 
To OliveOilMom
That sounds really bad. I have to wonder what would cause the police to want to arrest you in the first place. In some ways I also hope that your husband is not contributing to those issues and if so that it is something you are or can do something about. One of my ex's got me in a great deal of trouble and eventually I figured out it was best to leave him. In the process of living I also learned to regain control when I shut down or meltdown. There was another thread about the topic of meltdowns and a bit on how to deal with them better.
When saying "I'm sorry" doesn't feel like enough | Page 3 | AspiesCentral.com

Long story, don't worry I'm not at all abused and wouldn't stand for it if I were. I've been married to my husband for almost 28 years next month and abuse is one thing that isn't an issue. I was married to an abusive *ss when I was 18. Divorced him by 20. I took that crap from him every day until I figured out I was bigger than him and then I handed him his *ss and walked away and didn't look back. He's now waiting to be executed in another state but unfortunately he won't live to see that I don't think. If he does, I'll be there with bells on if I can manage to get an invitation to see it. My husband now is emotionally unavailable because he was raised in a family where you didn't talk about your feelings at all, and so he doesn't have a clue what to do about them, and he had very controlling parents that he never spoke up to so he's mentally messed up from that, with avoidance issues, control issues that he can only deal with in passive aggressive ways, lots of things like that but he's not abusive.

It was just during a period of a lot of stress, my mother living here with us, and lots of stuff going on. It was a long time ago. It's no big deal really, but I was furious about being arrested at the time. In retrospect everybody involved in that incident that night, including me, made some bad decisions. It's no biggie.
Thanks for being concerned though.
 

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