Interactions between learning disabled children and the police have proven terribly problematic, largely due to the fact that police lack the training to identify an LD child as well as how to address a situation involving an LD child.  The police resort to their standard operating procedure, with stupid and often tragic results.  The same is often true of others with disabilities, but this post addresses the specifics of the learning disabled child, the most vulnerable victim.

But to the limited extent it’s understandable when an officer from the outside comes in to deal with the LD child, there is absolutely no excuse when it happens in a school for learning disabled children by a police officer assigned to work within that school, as happened in Dolton, Illinois.

The purported cause for this violent assault was that the student had his shirt tail out, a violation of school rules.  It’s unfathomable that this violation, perhaps real despite its trivial nature, was the cause of this attack.  Rather, it appears to be the far more mundane, and commonplace, failure to immediately respect the cop’s authority that enraged the officer.  Still, the school must be cognizant of the noxious mixture of its rules and a violent cop in its hallway.

Why it was necessary to have a police officer in the hallway of this school is unexplained.  Was he there to prevent violence between students?  Protect the staff from children with behavioral issues?  Was there a drug or theft problem that compelled his presence?  It’s unclear.  But what is brutally clear is that the officer, this particular cop, should never have been allowed anywhere near this school and these children.  His conduct was criminal, and his victim was someone he knew to be a learning disabled child.  This was nothing more than a vicious attack.

In looking back at my own posts on the subject of special needs kids being harmed, arrested, assaulted, not to mention others with disabilities, it becomes extremely clear that they are particularly vulnerable to harm at the hands of police.  What distinguished this incident is that the cop wasn’t random, but was assigned to work within a school for learning disabled children.  He was chosen to be there. 

While all police officers need training in the identification and handling of people with disabilities, it is inexcusable that an officer selected to work within an LD school was specially screened for this service and then given extensive training in dealing with LD children.  It’s unfathomable that they would pluck a cop off the street, with the authority and control issues that tend to characterize bad cops, and place him in a situation where he could do such great harm.  It would be even worse if they selected this officer because he possessed the characteristics they believe appropriate to serve at this school.

While it goes without saying that no one, no child, no disabled person, no one should be the victim of this type of brutal attack, it is inconceivable that our most vulnerable children are the victims.  There is no excuse for this happening.  Ever.