Third-grader arrested for disorderly conduct

This is ridiculous, offensive & simply outrageous!

ESPANOLA, N.M. (AP) � An Espanola third-grader was handcuffed and arrested by police after hitting another student with a basketball, the child's mother and her lawyer say.

"The Legislature never envisioned that the law would be used to lock an 8-year-old in any jail, especially an adult jail," attorney Sheri Raphaelson said.

"This is the most egregious example of poor judgment by police that I've ever seen in my 15 years of practicing law," she said.

According to a juvenile citation for disorderly conduct, Jerry Trujillo was arrested Thursday and booked into the Espanola jail after he "got out of control and refused to go back to class."

Police Chief Richard Guillen, who was not at work Thursday, said he had few details but that officers "couldn't deal with" the boy before taking him into custody.

www.lubbockonline.com...

When you see outrageous stories like this one, it's no wonder people lose faith in the ability of government to exercise sound judgment.

If this had been my child, I would have absolutely lost it!

he won't be doing it again though will he hehe...

sorry I should make light of the subject. You are correct, the fact that the police felt that they needed to physically restrain a child is proposterous and hilarious.. that is unless the Spanish police no have a division of physically challenged officers who feared for their well being.....

[edit on 31/8/04 by Klepto]

I'm not sure what to think of this story. It does seem the kid has some behavior issues. After all, the kid was offered the choice:
back to class or jail. He made the choice.

Maybe mom is the one who needs the wake-up call. What's she gonna do when here son gets bigger and older? And meaner?

[edit on 31-8-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
I'm not sure what to think of this story. It does seem the kid has some behavior issues. After all, the kid was offered the choice:
back to class or jail. He made the choice.

Maybe mom is the one who needs the wake-up call. What's she gonna do when here son gets bigger and older? And meaner?

[edit on 31-8-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

I�m sorry, but what exactly is the maturity level of an 8-year-old?

I�m pleased the state was able to provide this child a lesson in �proportional response�. It will help prepare him to better understand the logic we deployed when alienating most of the international community in our pursuit against terrorism.


[edit on 31-8-2004 by loam]

I think many are missing the bigger injustice here....an adult jail versus a juvenile detention center...

Exactlly or even CYS protective service. He's 8 for God sake! Very alarming and very sad!

I would certainly think he was isolated from the general population.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
I'm not sure what to think of this story. It does seem the kid has some behavior issues. After all, the kid was offered the choice:
back to class or jail. He made the choice.

Maybe mom is the one who needs the wake-up call. What's she gonna do when here son gets bigger and older? And meaner?


Do you have any children yourself? And if you do are they normal? No ADD or ADHD? It must be nice to have normal children. I myself was blessed with two ADHD children. And let me tell you it has not been any joy ride. This Mother WOKE UP the first day of school of my oldest child. I seen how cruel and uncareing the schools are. How it was ok for the teachers to scrach up my son and have the cops do nothing about it. I woke up when I lost my 50k year job, because I spent to much time at school because they were unable to deal with ADHD children. They never helped me they thought just like you. It must be the mothers fault. I guess they are right about that after all I did give them half of there gene pool, But you never hear they say it's the Dads fault. About the choice of staying in school or getting to ride in a police car and getting to see a real live jail. Please don't tell me you made your judgement on that. I don't know a child who would rather be in school when you can go to a real live jail. I be that kid had the time of his life. lol if he is anything like my kids he did. You see going to jail or even getting kicked out of school is not a punishment. Its a field trip for them. I want to know what happend to ISS? Why have are schools tooken the easy way out? When I was a kid and I acted up in class I did not get kicked out or thrown in jail . I got sent to ISS for anywhere 3 to 5 days. You know what it worked back then it will work now, Schools are just to lazy and they don't care anymore. I don't know when they stopped careing I am thinking somewhere in the mid 70's.

DontTreadOnMe I want to thank you from me and all the Mothers with problem children. Thanks for making our lifes that much more painful.

Wow, they really took him to jail.

You would think that the school would call the parents there and have them reason with the child. 8, I bet he watches alot of cops, he understands going to jail, and he freaked out.

All he did was throw a ball at a kid. Kid fight, fight and they go home.

This is giving me a head-ack.

Originally posted by loam
This is ridiculous, offensive & simply outrageous!

ESPANOLA, N.M. (AP) � An Espanola third-grader was handcuffed and arrested by police after hitting another student with a basketball, the child's mother and her lawyer say.

"The Legislature never envisioned that the law would be used to lock an 8-year-old in any jail, especially an adult jail," attorney Sheri Raphaelson said.

"This is the most egregious example of poor judgment by police that I've ever seen in my 15 years of practicing law," she said.

According to a juvenile citation for disorderly conduct, Jerry Trujillo was arrested Thursday and booked into the Espanola jail after he "got out of control and refused to go back to class."

Police Chief Richard Guillen, who was not at work Thursday, said he had few details but that officers "couldn't deal with" the boy before taking him into custody.

www.lubbockonline.com...

When you see outrageous stories like this one, it's no wonder people lose faith in the ability of government to exercise sound judgment.

If this had been my child, I would have absolutely lost it!

Its the govts responsibity to watch her kids?...the school didnt want the kid...seems like the mother didnt make an attempt to pick up the child...hell...the article says that the mother agreed for the police to be called...the article also states that the kid was in a seperate room from the adults...Im failing to see what was wrong with how the "govt" acted...I highly doubt the kid was taken out in cuffs...or mistreated...im thinkning the mother is probably a piece of sh*t and is looking for publicity for her lawsuit...i could be wrong...but i dont think so....

His mother did come, but there is a conflict in almost every part of the story.

She said she asked that they not call police. They say she agreed with them to call.

With only the facts given to go on, I'd say the kid needed something. Yes, kids fight, but this was a case not only of him hitting a kid with a basketball, but of then raising his voice to the teacher who intervened. He's got to know there are consequences for both actions, but mostly the latter. Otherwise later on he's 16, much bigger and maybe not -just- mouthing off to teachers. Maybe not just hitting kids with basketballs. The young age like this is the time to really push the behavior issues, especially where successful interaction with society is involved. Behave and you're in your class going through your day. Misbehave and somebody gets a basketball to the head and you're in trouble with all the resultant problems.

Having said that... I think putting him in an adult facility and (if it's true) being faced with the threat of other inmates being allowed to "get him", is way too far. Way way too far. This was handled very unfortunately.

I wonder if this school or that police department have any kind of history for this type of behavior.

If the parents dont teach the child someone will have to.

Exactly right... if the parents won't teach him or back up punishment on these issues, someone else will have to do it. The schools have to deal with these kids all day every day for the whole term. Keep them in line, keep them safe and somewhere in there try to actually TEACH them something.

This "hard lesson" type of incident should be helpful to parents in showing that they must be tough on behavior problems because the alternative to their preferred method is someone else's method.

excuse me but I grew up creating all sorts of trouble in schools, getting in fights and mouthing off to teachers. Yes my parents tried to do something but were involved in helping my brother not to overdose. But I never went to jail and I did a complete turnaround at about the age of 16 or 17. I had half a brain and relised what I was doing. Yes it is the parents responcibility but a parent can only do so much. No the police should not have been called. If the parents could not handle it they should have taken the kids to some kind of hospital or home.

You do not lock up an 8 year old in an adult jail. By doing that you now just gave him bragging rights. Instead of putting a bandaid on the wound you need to find and fix the problem. I know it is easier said than done, but it beats taking the easy way out and calling the cops on an 8 YEAR OLD. That is just udderly retarded, and any one who thinks this is good is just as retarded.

And to respond to the adhd issue, my brother has adhd. He is 34 now and has lived a horrible lilfe. My parents did all that they could in a time of tough love. Yes they could have done better but they did the best they knew how to. He spent most of his life on drugs (illegal) but is clean now. Dropped out of school at 16 and so on. Are my parents to blame? Maybe yes maybe no. He made it to be an adult and learned his lessons. He was never arrested at 8. He did get arrested when he was older, as well as I but we were not 8 years old.

The police should have led him around the school in handcuffs as an example to the other students, then he should have been taken to his parents.

It's good that you finally turned it around, but it also means that you had up until age "16 or 17" to make life difficult for not only your parents but your teachers and the other kids in your classes. Great. See, if it only affected YOU, that would be fine. It would mean that YOU do badly or that YOU have troubles. But that kind of crap affects everybody. I had a history class where we almost never could get anything done because the teacher constantly had to spend time disciplining people who simply would not behave.

Yes, I put the responsibility on parents. They had the child. They must prepare the child to interact successfully in society. My mother had many issues with my younger brother. Allergies, adhd, suicidal tendencies, learning disabilities. I wasn't a huge discipline problem because I had been brought up from birth to respect authority figures and behave. Not doing so brought consequences that were followed through on.

If the parent cannot control the child, then it's up to society to do so and that will happen in the form of police intervention. I don't support arresting an 8 year old and putting them in any facility for this kind of thing, much less an adult facility. But I think an "Office Friendly/Officer Stern" type talk could have an impact. It went overboard, unfortunately for all involved.

At the risk of being flamed.... if someone feels they cannot handle raising a child, they shouldn't have one. Getting pregnant and giving birth is a choice. If you're making that choice and having a baby which will later on become an adult who affects the society around him/her, then you must take responsibility for the child's behavior as much for their sake as for the rest of us. They don't all turn into Charles Manson, but they don't all turn into Mother Theresa either.

Originally posted by torque

With only the facts given to go on, I'd say the kid needed something. Yes, kids fight, but this was a case not only of him hitting a kid with a basketball, but of then raising his voice to the teacher who intervened. He's got to know there are consequences for both actions, but mostly the latter.

Gasp! He actually RAISED his VOICE to a TEACHER??!! That's diabolical! He can't stay in school after doing that! After all, he's 8 years old! Get him out! Take him to adult prison! Maybe we should even have him be tried in our newly enabled secret court system!

This is so..........well, I don't even know. I'm at a loss. You can't send a child to adult prison! He's not old enough to defend himself, or afford a lawyer! None of the school staff, or police could calm the little squirt down?? What the HELL is going on???!!

The rest of my post stated that he shouldn't have gone to adult prison, so consider context.

Also consider that the refusal/inability to correct behavioral problems at a young age leads to a more sophisticated and complex behavioral problem later on in life. When dealing with this kind of thing, you can't simply look at the child that he is, you must also look at the teenager and young adult he's going to become. When children challenge authority figures and get away with it, it sets a bad precedent. The schools are limited in what they can do. Speak sternly, warn, give detention.... there are plenty who just don't respond to any of this. There is no next step like spanking or sedation if you're a school. There's the parent. If the parent is ineffectual, there's the law. At this point, that's all there is, I think, for options.

Wow! What the hell is wrong with them? How do you arrest an 8 year old? What do they have nothing better to do?

What should have the cops done?...Left him there possibly opening themselves up to a lawsuit?...I highly doubt he was cuffed or taken anywhere near any adult prisoners. Every precinct has seperate sections for juviniles. And if the police get called to the school, something has to be done. Let say the cops did nothing...and just left...and the kid became more violent and someone got hurt...whos EVERYONE going to blame....the cops....not the parents...not the teachers...sure as sh*t not the kid...but the cops...bringing him down to the precinct and having his mother get him was their only option...