John Lash, executive director of Georgia Conflict Center, wrote this op-ed for JJIE.org:
...Still, the case of a 9-year-old girl who, nearly a year ago, was detained by police in Portland, Ore., raises some serious questions about the city’s policing policies towards kids. The case (covered for nearly a year by Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian) has received attention both domestically and internationally and interest has been renewed after the girl’s mother took her case to a police oversight committee recently.
By all accounts the girl got into a fight at a youth club. She was apparently intervening in an argument between two other girls that turned into a fight between her and one of them. Staff broke up the fight and reported that the girl had continued to strike out while being restrained. There were no obvious injuries and the girl was suspended from the club for a week and sent home. The girls apologized to one another.
The mother of the girl she had been fighting with called the police later, complaining that her daughter had a mark on her face and her head had been banged into a wall. The police took a picture and went to talk to the girl, but she wasn’t there.
Six days later things took a more serious turn. Two police officers arrived at the girl’s home and questioned her about the fight. They then placed her in handcuffs, put her in their car and drove her to the downtown police station to be fingerprinted and photographed.
"When they put handcuffs on, I thought, 'Wait a minute, this has got to be a joke’” the girl’s mother said. "The look on my daughter's face went from humiliation and fear, to a look of sheer panic.'
http://jjie.org/op-ed-the-dangers-of-criminalizing-childhood-scuffles/106817/
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