Footage Shows 6-Year-Old Crying for Help During Arrest at School

Why do the police get called on six year olds? Take the child to the principal's office...call the parent. Done.

Pathetic treatment of the youngster, uncalled for treatment.

This one is difficult on many levels, but I will try to be honest and impartial, as I have a child close to this age. The thing I hate about these "clips" is that we get a limited, edited perspective. We hear the cries of a small child... her pleading and fear. We see the terrible image an enormous man in uniform placing that precious little girl into a police car like a common criminal. We wonder at the emotional and psychological trauma imparted by this experience. Only someone without a heart would fail to be moved by this. If it were my little boy, begging for help... I cannot warrant that I wouldn't be the next one to make national headlines; parental instinct is a powerful thing.

However, that's not quite the whole story... and to ignore these other facts, only gets us further from a solution.

What I see in this African American officer's eyes is genuine apprehension and regret. He's trying to be calm, gentle, and non-aggressive. He's trying to do a job he'd rather not do (I'd wager he didn't become an officer to arrest children) most probably because of some "well-intentioned" but utterly ridiculous policy or misunderstanding of the same that compels the school to call the Police whenever there's an incident of "violence". Back in the day, the Principle used to paddle you or put you in suspension (been there, done that... often with bloody knuckles and a bloody lip) until your parents came to take you away (usually something we feared FAR worse than any officer of the law). Even further back, they may have put gloves on you and made you fight it out in the ring... provided you shook hands after. Parents used to support educators, educators used to support parents, and children grew up respecting both. Sadly, we live in a day and age where even very young children are growing up sans any loving and nurturing leadership. We've cut good educators off at the knees with frivolous law suits and meaningless policies aimed at placating the overly-idealistic and falsely virtuous. Someone called the Police in... likely these educators. What options does the officer have upon arrival? Is he permitted to counsel the child, fill in for the lack of qualified or un-fettered adult supervision at school or at home?

Or does he have to do what the book tells him to do... as best he understands it?

What would've happened if he had simply left, or told the teachers how stupid it was to call the Police to deal with an enraged six year old? Would he have been commended? Would he have been reprimanded? Would a principle have called to complain "nothing was done"?

I'm not suggesting this is the "right" thing... it's clearly not; it's worse than wrong; it's insane. However, maybe we're blaming the wrong people, and failing to look past what can be seen at first glance.