According to this report by WFTV Eyewitness News, Thaliamar Jimenez was shot with a taser at Moss Park Elementary School in Orange County, Florida. Thaliamar was a learning disabled 11 year old who had a tantrum and, as the officer tried to remove her from the class, hit the officer in the nose.
According to the arrest report, before school Thursday morning, another student told teachers at Moss Park that Thaliamar pushed a boy into the street. When teachers tried to talk to the girl she became combative, started pushing her desk and chair and even spit at the teachers.
“She actually spoke to the student, told her multiple times to come. Even after the student punched her, she still continued to try and make the arrest without having to taze her. And that obviously wasn’t working,” explained Corporal Susan Soto, Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
The school resource officer, Orange County Deputy Donna Hudepohl, tried to take Thaliamar to the principal’s office and that’s when the child started swinging, hitting the officer in the nose.
So Deputy Hudepohl tased Thaliamar.
Many other parents are standing by the woman they call “their deputy.” “She had it coming. She assaulted an officer. You can’t let that go,” said parent Shanna Herrick.
This is a far more complicated issue than would appear from the news report, which is quite disappointing in its lack of information.
The reports states that Thaliamar was a learning disabled student with a behavioral component, which means that she should have had a behavioral intervention plan as part of her individualized education plan (IEP). In other words, she wasn’t just some “bad girl” who became violent, but a girl who suffered from a disability that gave rise to a loss of control that manifested in this behavior. This is a common occurrence with LD children, and one that schools should be prepared to handle.
When properly addressed, schools should be aware of the things that trigger uncontrolled outbursts and the ways to diffuse them without doing harm to the student or the student doing harm to others. While the knee-jerk assumption is that all children have the ability to control their behavior, LD students can be viewed like people with Tourette Syndrome, where they have no ability to control the sounds they emit, often including epithets, and it is no reflection on their being deliberately violent or malevolent.
While the story notes that Thaliamar had prior violent episodes, there was no mention of the school having developed a plan to address her uncontrolled behavior.
Typically, the parents of other students are intolerant of the needs of learning disabled students, both because they put their children at risk and because they are disruptive and problematic in class. However, since public schools are wedded to the inclusion model of educating learning disabled students, and since there are few options available to parents of LD students, especially those who lack the ability to pay for the few extraordinarily expensive private schools dedicated to teaching them, even children with behavioral components remain in the classroom.
Still, it’s difficult to imagine that between the teachers, school administrators and police, they were unable to find a way to diffuse Thaliamar’s outburst short of shooting her with a taser. In light of her learning disability, one would think that the school would have simply waited until she calmed down, diverted her attention or sought to reduce the level of confusion, tension, stimuli until she was able to better process what was happening around her.
The natural assumption, that Thaliamar had control over her behavior, does not necessarily apply to some LD kids. When police order them to stop, it produces the opposite affect, increasing tension and the level in stimuli, which the LD student cannot process adequately or quickly. When the student does not obey, or lashes out because they don’t comprehend what is happening around them, police misapprehend the meaning of their conduct and react.
In the past, I’ve posted about parents of LD children reaching out to their local police and educating them about their child for the specific purpose of avoiding situations like this. Some police departments have taken the initiative to train their officers to identify and address learning disabled children, particularly since the prevalence of autism looms as a significant problem for police.
It’s impossible to imagine that this situation could not have been handled far better than it was, and the simplistic calculus, girl hit officer so officer tased girl, reflects a disastrously wrong response. Schools are failing learning disabled students, in the first instance, and police must be trained in how to handle this children to avoid exacerbating the situation and causing needless and pointless harm.
These situations are bound to increase if schools and police don’t get a handle on how to address learning disabled students with behavioral components. We don’t tase children because they are disabled and don’t understand. Even if the other parents think it’s just fine.
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…I can’t speak for Orange County Sheriffs Dept., but my Dept. has a levels-of-force policy for the escalation/de-escalation of force used by officers. I’m sure it was formulated on adult behaviour and based on the combined personal experience of management. The news story (linked to) fleshes out the injury to the Deputy which may have been more disabling than ” hitting the officer in the nose ” suggests. And the photo of the child shows her to be pretty big for her age. No photo of the Deputy is found.
..The courts requirement that school districts mainstream disruptive children will inevitably lead to more of these incidents. I had the fortune to monitor a high school science class with mainstreamed, mentally challenged children (2 out of a class of 20 ) and found it was little about science and much about acting out and disruption. Teachingwise, it was a wasted 50 minutes for all. I suspect that is common.
..When you craft a law making it illegal to use any level of force on children, remember the 14-15 year old 200 pounders who have grown up using intimidation and force to get their way and are mean as rattlesnakes. They don’t have their age tatooed on their foreheads and many look 18+ years old. And if you can’t use the (usually) non-deadly taser, you’re left with subduing them with a baton or letting it build until deadly force is justified. Seldom does the officer responding have the luxury this Deputy had of knowing the child they are going to deal with.
..I came on the job before females in police work, before tasers and mace . It was wooden sticks, saps, brute force or shoot ’em. Police departments gave employment preferrence to BIG guys. I don’t know how big this Deputy is, but many women in my Dept. are diminutive and few have ever been in a knock down fight. Most men, and every cop from my generation, had had there clock cleaned at some time and didn’t like it. Initiating and controlling force was and is at the core of police work. Society decides what tools cops can use, what kind of cops you hire, and how much force is reasonable. If you want to build a legal circle around disruptive, mentally impaired children, be prepared to have them use all the room you give them and then some to coerce/intimidate and injure your kids at school and out. Even dim bulbs understand pain and aversion. In the final tally, this child was hurt, but not injured, by the Deputy. She has the opportunity to learn that pushing a boy into the street and pushing desks and chairs and spitting at teachers and slugging a Deputy in the nose has painful consequences. Based on my own experience, verbal consequences have little lasting effect on the behaviour of kids like this.
I hear a lot of what you’re saying, and I am not a fan of “one-size-fits-all” mainstreaming of developmentally and behaviorally challenged children. Schools suck at dealing with kids outside the norm. They don’t want them, but they don’t have anyplace else to put them. And the parents of these children too often lack a sufficient understanding of their own children’s needs to realize that they need greater help than inclusion can ever provide. But this is a different fight altogether.
Be cautious about one thing. When you speak of “kids like this,” it comes from the outside perspective. Imagine if this girl was deaf instead of severely challenged. Would you understand an officer shooting her because she didn’t follow a command, when the problem was that she can’t hear the command? You write “Even dim bulbs understand pain and aversion.” I don’t think you really mean to characterize this child as a “dim bulb,” but do you really mean to say that there’s nothing going on the with child that a good beating wouldn’t solve? I don’t think that’s what you think or how you would have reacted.
This is why the job of cop isn’t for everybody. Neither is the job of teacher.
…I don’t believe law enforcement has the authority or duty to punish citizens. From my reading of the article, and listening to the interviews, that wasn’t a factor in the Deputy using her taser. The school had lost control of this youngster and I surmise she dominates her classmates. The Deputy failed to maintain control ( poor tactics ) and was injured because of that. She used a non lethal, slightly injurious tool to regain control. Sounds appropriate on it’s face. Yes, I consider this child a dim bulb, and so does her mother who says she’s really a 5 year old in her maturity. Still, the child knew what she did was wrong and her lie to her mother demonstrates that. Even five year olds know pushing, hitting and spitting are not allowed. This girl may or may not be able to control her actions, but she needs to learn how and school is the appropriate place. If she continues in this vein, she will get thumped, hard, and it will be by bigger and older children who’s siblings were wronged by her. Self control is a basic building block of life and most of the folks I arrested were lacking in some form of it. Cops are the last, not the first resort here.
..I think your metaphor of the deaf child is off point. Officers shouldn’t shoot people because they don’t follow commands. I know it is common for folks to ignore cops. But deadly force should be the last reasonable resort to an imminent, credible threat of great bodily harm or death to a person. I know many lawyers trivialize a shooting by asking the officers if they didn’t shoot the suspect because he didn’t follow a command, but that’s deceptive and an attempt to draw the attention away from the suspects actions that precipitated the gunfire.
…I recall a nine year old charged with murder in Florida. I hope this child is not charged with a crime. The DA has a lot of discretion and should use it. Momma needs more skills as she is the primary teacher for this girl. I’d bring her into the mix. The Deputy needs more skills too. She should have seen this coming. I may have handcuffed the child before moving her, but couldn’t really say because I wasn’t there. I’ve arrested many folks and became a stickler for cuffing when I finally understood I couldn’t predict behaviour very well. I wonder how much arrest experience the Deputy has ?
…Children act out more than adults. As I recall, the nine year old killer claimed he was acting out. This girl may also have been following a script in her mind. We need to plant other, better scripts up there. My dad was a key player in my behaviour ( when he got home ). Momma is the key to this not happening again
Oh Dave. I think you need to study up some on severely mentally challenged kids. Your assumptions and understanding attribute a level of comprehension to this child that she doesn’t have. When her mother said she was like a 5 year old, she didn’t mean she was immature. She meant That she has the comprehension of a 5 year old.
This is a recurring theme with kids, and will grow due to the prevalence of austism. They are not “bad” kids or “stupid” kids who can be smacked around a bit and will learn a lesson. This is totally outside their control. Seriously Dave, study up some on these kids and I think you will realize that there is a huge difference between your assumptions and reality.
..My education stretches all the way thru high school graduation, but during 32 years of road patrol I saw and dealt with a lot of sick kids. That’s it. No more bonafides. I can only write from my perspective based on my experience and temperment. Frankly, I am sick to death of police work and dealing with other folks problems. Retired 7 years, I have no interest in going back into the fire. I avoid police because their bitching and complaining depresses me. I live out where elephants go to die and that suits me and the bride well. I’d rather think and talk about things and ideas instead of about people.
I hear some believable justification supporting the deputy’s behavior and still feel it could have been handled differently. So often, when a child with behavior problems acts out, the adults responding tend to throw gasoline on a fire. All efforts need to be made to avoid a power struggle and it is imperative that the person responding is well trained in non-violent interventions.