A nine-year-old boy in tears, being handcuffed by authorities is a disturbing scene no matter the context. This story's "further context" includes the fact that the child was autistic and being arrested for fighting back when a group of bullies attacked him. It was teachers that called the police to Needham Elementary School in Franklin, Indiana. Luckily, the boy's father was on the scene to support his son as two police officers cuffed him and led him out to the police car.
The boy was charged as a juvenile with battery and criminal mischief for fighting back when cornered and surrounded by a pack of bullies on the playground. After the cops were called the entire school was put on lockdown. Ronnie Shepperd, the boy's father, says it bega when his son was shoved to the ground on the playground. This is nothing new, he has gone to staff multiple times about the situation.
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"My son was being bullied by another kid and he told staff several times about it.
'Nothing was done so when the kid hit him twice in four days he fought back.
'Since he is autistic, he went into defense mode when he got hit so he hit a teacher after she broke up the fight.
'But when he calmed down he said sorry to the teacher'."
It is this reporter's fervent opinion that law enforcement should be better educated in dealing with children, the elderly and mentally ill, autistic and other special needs populations. As for the "adults" in charge at Needham Elementary, there's no excuse for not already being prepared.
I agree. Nowadays, if you tell a teacher, you're branded as a weakling, and in turn, make yourself a bigger target. It's a lose-lose situation, if you tell a teacher, you're a weakling, if you fight back, you get arrested.
Learned this the hard way.
Extemporaneous blog:
Got picked on a bully for a few days in middle school. The fifth day I had enough and stabbed him in the arm with a pencil and kneed him in the gut and punched him to the ground. Administrators didn't even bother investigating and sent me to in-school suspension for a couple of days. When I got out the rest of my class thought I was a violent freak and the bully played the victim card for the rest of the year. Dumbass gradually pissed everyone off and after almost a year of ostracization people started warming up to me. I never forgave them, and I learned a great lesson. People will believe anything if they think they're sticking up for the victim. They won't bother with learning the real story if they believe they already got all the facts. The hardest thing for them to admit is that they've been fooled so even after they realized they had coddled a delinquent (he eventually got sent to juvenile detention for the remainder of the year), they were reluctant to admit they were ever fooled and nobody apologized for being ugly and mean as if that was how you handle a "violent freak."
P.S. Kids are fucking stupid and I don't regret fighting back. I'll always treasure the nerve to fight back over being a pushover.
Schools always side with the bullies when the victim fights back, because "just tell a teacher", as if that's going to stop the bullying.