Yesterday, 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez was handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her desk at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills.
She wrote "I love my friends Abby and Faith," adding the phrases "Lex was here. 2/1/10" and a smiley face.
When her Spanish teacher saw this, it was reported and the 12-year-old girl was handcuffed in metal cuffs (Not even the plastic ones they use on hardened criminals), led out of school and detained at the police station across the street.
School property should not be defaced and we want our kids to know this. But wasn’t making her stay after class and cleaning her desk more appropriate?
Alexa is a good student with a stellar attendance record. She was crying, vomiting and terrified. She called her mother immediately. When she saw her daughter in handcuffs, the police officer told her it was procedure.
Her mother, Moraima Tamacho, 49, an accountant, who lives with her daughter in Kew Gardens said "The whole situation has been a nightmare."
This poor child was humiliated. It’s bad enough when parents abuse their kids, but when kids are traumatized and arrested for a minor infraction, this is clearly child abuse on the part of the school.
According to news sources, City officials acknowledged Alexa's arrest was a mistake, and that City Education Department spokesman David Cantor said "Based on what we've seen so far, this shouldn't have happened."
Alexa is still suspended from school, her mother said. She and her mom went to family court on Tuesday, where Alexa was assigned eight hours of community service, a book report and an essay on what she learned from the experience.
Alexa Gonzalez no longer faces a suspension for scribbling with a lime green marker, but principal Marilyn Grant told her mother, that agency policy dictated that she calls the cops.
Grant told Alexa’s mother that it wasn't their fault that it was something they had to do," Camacho said of her meeting with Grant at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills. "She doesn't consider it doodling."
According to Department of Education spokesperson Margie Feinberg "This should not have happened and the principal has lifted the suspension."
Hopefully the NYPD and the City Education Department will agree this is excessive punishment and change how kids are punished for minor infractions.
Even though kids shouldn't doodle on school property, they're being kids. Give them detention -- but excessive punishment is off the wall and completely wrong.
The NYPD is expected this month to start using Velcro handcuffs to subdue unruly kids following a pilot program in 22 schools in northern Queens. Hopefully they will be use donly for kids who present danger to themselves and others and not for "doodling" on their desks!
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Comments
Maybe her parents should teach her to respect the property of others!
Good grief! What are you, Mike, a Nazi?
Horrific,, waste of tax payers money and police and court time. Shockingly stupid judgent call made by teacher, principal and police. Issue could have been settled in 2 mintues. Teacher could have had child wash desk( it was washable marker). Child could then stay after school and do detention, or wash all the desks, or write essay,, or all three,, but no police or court was needed. Americans are stupid. Save your taxpayers money to deal with your gun crime and drug crime.
Thank you Cindy, you make my point. I can only imagine how your children are/will be taught to treat others.
Some of the people on here are ignorant. As a teacher, it is certainly not my call whether or not to call the police in that situation. It is an administrative decision to do that. Do not fault that teacher. Honestly, I would be ticked if one of my kids defiled a desk with a marker. That is disrespectful. Maybe that mother should teach her child how to act correctly.
I'm sure she was just the average little smart potty-mouth unruly kid always disrupting the class. And if you write on any public property paid by taxpayers its considered vandalism and in the real world, people are sent to jail.
As an employee of a high school, this is a large problem. There is no difference in her doodling on a desk or a tagger tagging a fence. Here is my question...Did she learn her lesson? And the answer is yes!!! She stated that she will never do that again. My guess....neither will her friends. Until Mom sues the school and makes millions on "Her daughter's mental anguish" and then the lesson is lost to all. When the parent wins the suit what will we happen then? You now show that you can damage any ones property that you want and they will pay you to do it!!
How about this...Teach your child right from wrong and discipline them when they do something wrong. Be a parent not a friend and raise a child that will admit when they have done something wrong and suffer the consequences for poor decisions.
We would have fewer problems as a society if parents raised their children instead of trying to be their friend!
I realize that none of you have probably ever been arrested, but it is absolutely a terrible experience. She was 12 years old, and how is it a waste of tax payers money? You can still use the desk afterwards can't you? Only 30 percent of the "taxpayers" vote anyways so they obviously don't really care all that much. I don't blame the school for reporting the girl, but I am however curious about that officer who deemed it worthy of a lesson parade. Maybe you psuedo soldiers of morality should stop blabbing away before you know the parents situation as well. She could have a few jobs she has to work and rather than showering her daughter with a million restrictions she cherishes the relatively short time they have together on the earth.
How about making her clean the desk and all the other desks in the classroom? Ahhh Dahhh!
Notice how these idiots justify everything by procedure, when if they just did nothing but punish the kid with detention or a talking to (especially if they were a good kid overall) its not like they would have been sued.
Lisa, that is a dumb response; causing a kid mental trauma isn't the way to fix problems, especially if the kid is usually a nice kid anyway. Same with all you other idiots justifying it. No it wasn't the best thing to do, but it was just a kid being a dumb kid, jesus christ get a life guys.
And no, you don't show the school you can damage anyone's property. You show the school that 'zero tolerance' policies and gross overreactions are stupid. Again, detention is the appropriate response, at worse (if its a typically disruptive kid who has done it at least once or twice before typically).
Brian and Cindy seem to be cut from the same cloth. It's unfortunate when one's only response to a different opinion is derision, ridicule and name calling. Again, no need to wonder where some children pick up their lack of respect for others.
Zero tolerance is just an excuse not to use judgement. Maybe the administrators don't trust those in the school to exercise good judgement, so, they take the decisions out of their hands. Then we have something crazy like this.
The children's lack of respect could come from how they're treated themselves. Hopefully the family can teach the child that though the adults here are following procedure (?), they can make very poor decisions as well.
So, if your toddler colors on the wall, do you have them arrested also or do you have them scrub the wall clean? If you child has a minor lapse in judgement, do you call the cops or have them undo what they did? Chances are pretty good that the desks slready have graffiti on them, and that is what gave her the idea. Cleaning desks would have been the appropriate response. Having that chore as part of detention would be a great punishment. Scrubbing bathroom walls, cleaning the cafetria, scrubbing desks, chipping gum, picking up trash are all great ways to have kids serve detention. No, let's instead spend thousands of dollars having her arrested, tried, sentenced and the follow up, plus the trauma to her instead of using a brain. Even if she had carved up the desk, bill her parents for a replacement. Arresting a student for a non-dangerous activity is stupid and pointless. You arrest people for a serious crime. You punish kids for lapses in judgement. the is a difference.
I hope they take this school to the cleaners and get rich off of it and all the administrators that are part of this policy and it's enforcement lose their jobs. They are too stoooooopid to be in education.
Even those children who are well taught and behave and excel at school (did anyone actually read the description of the child?) can and sometimes do something to show off to their friends. Yes, she was wrong in how she did it. No, it wasn't worth the cops being such jerks about it. Oh, yeah... she learned her lesson though, right? All you self righteous hypocrites can fly a kite. She could've still learned her lesson well without all the fanfare. Seriously, she writes on a desk and is arrested? She was scared cause she knows that being arrested means something bad. And she sure as heck didn't do anything so terrible that she should get a criminal record so soon (she's old enough to know the connection between arrests and criminal records). Just cause she doesn't have a crime on her record now, doesn't mean that this won't get used against her. Once someone is arrested, too many automatically assume it was justified.
Btw, I'm a mother of 2 kids who are around her age.
So, if she were to have done it on the chalkboard, would it still have warranted the arrest? I'm betting that lot of you would not agree so. Why? Oh, there are ways of making the child clean it up and explaining to them why it was wrong... so, does that mean that there was no way of cleaning the desk (or even all the desks in the room) and explaining to her why it was wrong in this case?
To all who say she deserved it - Can you say with absolute certainty that she has done this before? Was it with something that absolutely tore up the desk? Was it something she intended to do as some rebellious act toward the school?
I'm willing to bet that some of you are racists who'd have shut your mouths had it been a white girl.
IT WAS A MARKER FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Of course, if you give a child a toy lego gun, it means you're teaching the child to be a future Columbine student, so that means using a marker must mean she's going to be a graffiti gangsta when she grows up.
NOT.
Some of you are being so harsh on this kid. It's not right, but kids write on desks all the time. The appropriate punishment would have been for her to clean the desk after school. On the first day of school, how many parents say "don't write on the desk." It was wrong and she gets that it was wrong. But handcuffed and arrested - ridiculous!Lighten up on her!
OMG!!! I mean come on thats over exagerating!!! I mean everybody does it! Good or bad!!! Teachers are just stupid cuz they never see it be done! But look under any desk or whatever and you see Gum little hearts and everything names and whatever but come on getting arrested thats just wrong!!!
Thats like arresting them for sticking chewing gum on the desk after you saw someone else do it before... they aren't the only one who did it... so why get the cops involved?
another reason for home schooling
SHE'S JUST A KID FOR CRYIN OUT LOUD!!! She could've been made to clean up the desk n then talked to. Having a kid arrested for scribbling her desk is like heights of stupidity! And the cops seem to be the biggest jerks in even wasting their time arresting the kid.
For a second, Forget the taxpayers money, the cops time and all that bullshit. Think about the kid. Think about the emotional impact it would've had on her. Actions like these on kids of young age lead to Columbine type disasters in the future.
i goto scothool her school, i felt bad for her altho we did have officers come to our schoool earlier in the year telling us if we vandalize that would happen ; not saying it was correct cus it deffinitly wasnt. i wrote on many desks & ive gotten caught couple of times , all my teachers did was ask me to stop not resort to that. Her spanish teach has a bi-polar disorder so she probally took her angust on alexa
what an effing joke....good lord! im sure if they would of searched lockers down the hall they could of at least found some dope to get someone on!!!!!!!!!!!
What a great learning experience for this future Journalist! Who is the "Educator" in this story...the child! She is a perfect reflection of the world that we "adults" have agreed to creating. About time that we change.
get them alexa showem you can't mess with us kids'!
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