Why Was A Six-Year-Old Black Girl Handcuffed By Police At School?

It's been a week since Ontario's education minister Mitzie Hunter ordered a probe into systemic racism at York region school board after a public school board trustee called a parent there the n-word.

While the horror of that incident is still sinking into the public consciousness, another school board has come under fire for discrimination. This week, the mother of a six-year-old girl in the Peel school district told CityNews her child was handcuffed by police at school. The family is black and their lawyers from the African Canadian Legal Clinic say the incident is an egregious example of anti-black racism.

Police said they were called to Nahani Way Public School in September—the third time school officials had called cops to deal with this particular little girl.

According to Peel Sgt. Josh Colley, "the officers arrived on scene and found a young girl who was acting extremely violent, punching, kicking, biting, spitting. And their first priority is her safety."

Colley, speaking to CityNews, said the officers used de-escalation techniques to try to calm the child down.

"When that didn't work the officers, with the resources that they had, they used what they could to restrain her in a safe manner and ultimately ensure her safety and the safety of the others."

The girl was shackled by her ankles and her wrists.

"It's an insult to think that someone would say that race played a part in the way that we dealt with the situation," said Colley, who is also black.

At times breaking down in tears, the mother, who is battling thyroid cancer, told CityNews "no six-year-old little girl deserves that." She said she's concerned that her daughter feels she did something to warrant being handcuffed. "I tell her every day it wasn't her fault. She's a good kid… The police have to be held accountable for their behaviour," she said, noting she asked school staff why no one stood up for her daughter and was told, "They're the police, we didn't know what to do. We couldn't intervene."

Reached by VICE on Friday, Peel school board spokeswoman Carla Pereira said school staff aren't calling police per se—they're "asking for first responder support" for a child who may have an escalated heart rate or an anxiety attack.

She said staff would typically try to de-escalate the situations themselves, doing things like taking a kid out of the environment in which they've become agitated, practising deep breathing, have a conversation, giving them calming toys, and calling family members.

"Failing that, if the child still appears to be escalated and we feel there's an ongoing safety risk to the child we would call 911," Pereira said.

Read more: Look at All the Ridiculous Excuses This School Trustee Used After Calling A Parent the N-word

She also said unlike school staff, "the average parent or adult might not ever have seen a child escalated to the point where they fear for their own professional safety."

However Danardo Jones, legal director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, told VICE there is simply no justification for handcuffing a little girl.

"Is there anything else that two 200-pound men could have done to restrain a 48-pound child? Did they try giving her a lollipop or maybe a colouring book with some crayons? The kind of stuff any compassionate adult would do," he said.

Jones said the clinic will be pursuing human rights complaints against the school board and the police.

He took issue with Peel police's description of the child as "violent."

"No one uses that kind of language to describe the behaviour of a baby, of a child."

Jones went through the little girl's history with the school, noting that she had been suspended four times and had the police called her on three times. He said her mother didn't have behavioural issues with her, but for a period of time—while the mother was being treated for cancer last year—she would receive calls almost daily to pick her daughter up from school.

"She was literally having to come out of her sick bed," he said. The girl's father died when she was a baby. Jones also explained that the school called Children's Aid Society but that the organization found there was no parental issue.

Pereira told VICE that schools use a progressive discipline model, looking at things like the child's history, whether or not they're displaying a pattern of behaviour, what disciplinary measures have been used in the past, and mitigating factors such as behavioural disabilities, before taking an "age appropriate" action.

"If the behaviour is repeated, if there's a consistent pattern of abuse… they're going to look at more serious consequences."

She said the superintendent looks into any accusations of racism.

Read more: A New Video Shows a Detroit School Cop Manhandling a Teen Girl

The girl is reportedly now in a different school where she's had no issues. But Jones said she has been traumatized by being handcuffed.

"Whenever she hears a siren she clings to her mother," he said, adding when she sees a cop car on the road, "She tells her mom to slow down the car because she's afraid her mom will get arrested."

He said the incident has sparked numerous complaints from other black parents who say they've had similar negative experiences. And it's shattered a belief that children were somehow safe from racial discrimination.

"This is the purest form of anti black racism. It shows that none of our bodies are exempt for this type of state violence," he said. "I always thought our babies were exempt from this but clearly they are not."

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