Arvada Police defend arrest of 11-year-old over drawing

Arvada Police defend arrest of 11-year-old over drawing


ARVADA, Colo. -- Arvada Police are defending the way they handled the arrest of an 11-year-old boy. The Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs from his home for drawing stick figures in school - something his therapist told him to do.

...

They put him in a cell, took his mug shot and fingerprinted him. He says he thought he was going to jail and would never be able to go home again.

According to the police report, "Tim" explained he made the drawing to release anger and would never hurt teachers or anyone. At first school officials did not want to press charges, but changed their mind when police called them later that night. A juvenile assessment report shows he's never been in legal trouble before and is at low risk to reoffend.

He's charged with a third degree misdemeanor, interfering with staff and students at an educational facility. The system says it's doing what's in the best interest of the child. But Tim's therapist says handcuffing an 11-year-old and putting him in a cell over something like this is "quite an overreaction" and does much more harm than good.

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-arvada-police-arrest-11yearold-over-inappropriate-stick-figure-drawing-20110221,0,7099823.story

At least none I care to write out of fear that the long arm of Arvada law may reach to Alaska.

sued

I'd get a lawyer to at least cover the amount of further therapy this child will need for being traumatized by the police.

Drawing a harmless picture is a damned good way of taking out your anger and frustration without ever harming anyone.

What the hell would they PREFER that an angry kid do with his anger and frustration?

So they arrest him and lock him up for it?

:wtf:

In any sane and rational age they would have praised the kid for channeling his emotions this way.

to get rid of special needs kids.

dg

overreaction yes. but the authorities wish to take no chances.

I had plenty to say yesterday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x479820

Because they're cruel sadists that love fucking with people, including little kids.

with people I knew who went on to become police officers. :(

They were usually the bullies in school, and wanted jobs where they could keep being bullies as adults, but be praised for it. Now society is Required to put them up on a pedestal and tell them how fucking wonderful they are while getting abused and beaten up.

This is a great example for those right-wing, neocon defenders of the Patriot Act, NSA warrantless wiretapping, and invasive airport pat-downs -- you know, the folks who are quick to proclaim "If you haven't done anything wrong, why should you care?"

Well, this kid and his parents did everything right ... informed the principal in advance of the boy's therapy and cooperated with police and look what happened.

I heard on a local Denver talk show this morning that after the kid was finally returned to school, he was still kept under constant surveillance -- he wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom by himself. I understand that now he has had to transfer to another school.

If you want to know more about this incident, I've written about it at my web site:
http://www.davechandler.info/2011/02/zero-common-sense-happens-here.html

"He's charged with a third degree misdemeanor, interfering with staff and students at an educational facility."

He was throwing the drawing away, how can that be interfering with staff and students??
I would file multiple law suits.

the radical right republican go around and threaten to kill people and are told to go for it.
A boy draws a picture of stick figures and is arrested. Something is wrong with this picture.

reading this update I wonder if the police read the Miranda Rights to the kid

Thanks for posting

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-arvada-beating-settlement-txt,0,7777367.story

ARVADA, Colo. - Another case of alleged Arvada police brutality has surfaced, this one caught on video.

Last week, Arvada police revealed numerous officers has resigned or been put on leave following allegations of excessive force and cover-up.

FOX31 News has learned about a new case -- this one costing Arvada taxpayers $100,000 dollars.

At least one of the officers involved in this new case was involved in the previous case as well. The Court family sued the Arvada police for illegally entering their home, beating them, falsely arresting them, and then lying about it.

At least 15 officers are named in the lawsuit.

The City of Arvada settled with the family for $100,000 dollars.

The family says the video shows one of the sergeants yelling at the other officers to stop tasing their son, Lucas Maliszewski. But they did not.

----
This is from September 2010

a lot of people have problems with consistency and intellectual honesty.

Every time there is a mass murder or a particularly newsworthy "local man snaps and does something horrible" story, DU mirrors watercooler chat across the country bewailing that somebody should have seen this coming and it's obvious the protagonist was going to do something terrible and could have been stopped had somebody got the authorities involved.

It's irrational to complain about both. We either intervene, using the authority of the state, with people displaying signs of erratic or antisocial behavior or disturbed mental/emotional states or we don't. You cannot expect perfect prescience in either case. Many people behave erratically and don't shoot up their school. Some even behave perfectly normally outwardly and then DO. There is of course no way to know if this kid would do anything violent to the teacher. Quite probably, heck almost certainly, would not have, but I absolutely 100% guarantee that had he gone Columbine a week later and someone unearthed this story with the alternate ending of it being dismissed as childish acting out, the entire country including a sizable segment of DU would be crying for heads to roll among those who ignored an obvious danger sign like drawing the crime before he committed it.

I am consistent. I do not believe in pre-crime. Not here, but also not for Laughner et al. Can't have it both ways and remain honest to reason.