12-year-old Queens student arrested for doodling on desk sue city for excessive force

[galvatron]

Student who was arrested for doodling on school desk sues city for excessive force

BY Rachel Monahan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, April 3rd 2010, 4:00 AM

$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/04/03/alg_alexa_gonzalez.jpg') Pace for News
Alexa Gonzalez who was handcuffed , arrested, and booked for doodling on a desk, with her mother Moraima Camacho.

$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/04/03/amd_alexa_gonzalez.jpg') Pace for News
Alexa Gonzalez, a student Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, Queens, was handcuffed and detained at police precinct for doodling on her desk with erasable marker.





The 12-year-old schoolgirl handcuffed and arrested in February for doodling on her desk plans to sue the city.
A lawyer for Alexa Gonzalez and her mother officially notified the city that they'll seek $1 million in damages for the alarming incident inside Junior High School 190 in Queens.
The legal papers describe Alexa's ordeal as an excessive use of force and a violation of her rights. "We want to stop this from happening to other young children in the future," said the family's lawyer, Joseph Rosenthal.
Using an erasable lime-green marker, Alexa scribbled the message "I love my friends Abby and Faith," Alexa's mom, Moraima Camacho, told the Daily News in February. "The whole situation has been a nightmare."
The notice filed against the city education department and the NYPD reveals Alexa was subjected to harsh treatment even before her arrest.
She was "physically dragged by a teacher and an assistant principal" to the dean's office, the legal papers claim.
School safety officers searched her by placing "their hands inside the rear and front pockets of her jeans."
Despite the fact that officers "knew, or should have known that it was a soluable, erasable marker," police officers were summoned to arrest her, the papers note.
Alexa was perp-walked out of the school in front of her classmates with her hands locked in metal handcuffs behind her back.
Alexa's mother pleaded with the officers to accompany her daughter to the police precinct, but Camacho was told to go home and wait for a call.
Officers placed Alexa in "an enclosed room" at the precinct and handcuffed her to a pole for more than two hours, the papers note.
City lawyers declined to comment, but city officials acknowledged in February the arrest was a mistake.
Alexa is not the first kid to seek justice for excessive force. The family of Chelsea Fraser, then 13, sued the city too after she was arrested for writing "okay" on her desk at Brooklyn's Intermediate School 201.
After then-5-year-old Dennis Rivera was handcuffed for throwing a fit in kindergarten, his family sued for $15 million in damages.
Their lawsuit is ongoing, as is a class-action lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union in January on behalf of city middle- and high-school students.

[COLOR=#000000]link
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010...#ixzz0kBm0FH1E
[/COLOR]

[kidd]

The zero tolerance law rears its ugly head again.

Those kids will be really traumatised. I usually don't like people suing for millions for every little issue, but, this time, I agree with the suing, just so that these schools won't be so overzelous and mindly in doing their job in the future. The kids might 'get over it', but, it will affect them in the future in some unconscious way. They might develope a fear of authority, fear of making decision, taking initiative etc.

[Banh Mi]

Sounds pretty biased in favour of the kid. What does the school say?

[kidd]

I guess this could be the outcome of overzealous kids protection law for schools also.

Like one commentator said

When you take away all the traditional ways of disciplining students like writing sentences (I will not write on the desk, 100 times) standing with nose in corner, cleaning desks, after school detention and even the paddle, because it is illegal or might hurt their self esteem, what is left are adult types of discipline, i.e. arrests and handcuffs. (if that does not mess with your self-esteem I do not know what does!) Now this student may a been a little **** who ducked and dodged discipline since kindergarten because mama was always on the phone defending her, and I agree, schoosl are in a funk as how to discipline but they went overboard.

[Banh Mi]

Hurt her self esteem? Look at her, for a 12 year old she's more dolled up than her mother. I hardly believe she is as innoscent and as one sided as we are led to believe.

That she had to be 'dragged' to the office? A co-operative person would not be dragged. I just believe there is more to this story than we are led to believed. We've only heard testimonials from her, her mother, and her lawyer.

[remember_Cedric]

Dolled up? She fairly has any makeup on her face, and regular hair. Don't be misled by the big rose on her tee-shirt.

Why is there a need for handcuff? She did not murdered someone with her marker. Or, unless she fought back or displayed violent disposition?

[Bei Rongkun]

I am not fully understand the situation above, what is doodling ?

and the pictures looks great.

[Guo Xiang]

Why is there a need for handcuff? She did not murdered someone with her marker. Or, unless she fought back or displayed violent disposition?

I agree there is no need for handcuffs. It's only doodling for goodness sake. The police should never have been involved in the first place, unless she hits someone in the process of being taken to the dean's office.

[remember_Cedric]

I am not fully understand the situation above, what is doodling ?

and the pictures looks great.

Doodle refers to random drawing, sketching, aimless scribble, etc.

In the above case, the teen girl was doodling a "word art" on the desk in her school, which we could call such act, graffiti.

[kidd]

Dolled up? She fairly has any makeup on her face, and regular hair. Don't be misled by the big rose on her tee-shirt.

To be honest, she is quite dolled up. She has eye shadows on, mascara on and those brows definitely has been trimmed before. She most probably is wearing lips gloss too.

[HuangYushi]

Honestly, I don't understand what's the big hoo-hah about the act of doodling on a desk. Students do that all the time! In my school, anyone who doodles on their desks would have to clean the doodles up (it's usually pencil, so an eraser will do). That's all. Parents are not even informed, and no one has ever been given detention, or written lines because of such doodling.

[ByTmE]

Honestly, I don't understand what's the big hoo-hah about the act of doodling on a desk. Students do that all the time! In my school, anyone who doodles on their desks would have to clean the doodles up (it's usually pencil, so an eraser will do). That's all. Parents are not even informed, and no one has ever been given detention, or written lines because of such doodling.

I was a doodler. I drew on everything. EVERYTHING. And then I became an educator. I'm sure glad I'm a generation older than this Alexa, who by the way does not look 12 years old. My Teacher-Radar tells me this is a repeat offender with a need for an attitude adjustment. Smells of a personal vendetta, hence the harshness of the enforcement and the resulting lawsuit. This is going to be a power trip for both sides.

[JoeLee]

hrmm...a bit harsh...but most likely more to the story. I still subconsciously scribble on desks every now and then..especially during boring lectures....goin 2 try and stop the habit....=X

[HuangYushi]

I was a doodler. I drew on everything. EVERYTHING. And then I became an educator. I'm sure glad I'm a generation older than this Alexa, who by the way does not look 12 years old. My Teacher-Radar tells me this is a repeat offender with a need for an attitude adjustment. Smells of a personal vendetta, hence the harshness of the enforcement and the resulting lawsuit. This is going to be a power trip for both sides.

In that case, the school authorities have been quite foolish to address the girl's attitude in this way, knowing that theirs is a society of "rights" and "lawsuits". Attitude and character issues that cannot be adjusted through timely/repeated advice and counsel to both parent and child, should just be allowed to visit upon the parent in a non-profitable way, imo. Then, as I have told parents in real-life, when that non-profitable day comes, the parents had better remember that someone way back in their past had told them about this before.