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Comment by adamch | Hacker News Reader

I admit, when I moved to the US, I didn't expect "likelihood of arresting my children" to be a factor I'd need to consider in choosing schools.

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It's not a factor. This is utterly bizarre and horrifying in the US. It's in the news because it is far far from normal.

She's 6, even if she needs arresting (and that's a rather big "if" there), she's tiny, she doesn't need handcuffs.

The person who did that needs to have their head checked. From the video they did not appear to be wantonly cruel, they appeared to be some sort of rule following robot, without a brain that says "wait - she's 6, let's not do that".

But this is not some normal thing in the US.

This is making the news because it is outrageous (in the most literal sense of the word). If this were normal it wouldn't make the news.

From what I read this is not that rare. These cops get sent to a school and the only thing they know is to treat children like everybody else. So if they don’t comply force will be applied.

My daughter was arrested in preschool at age 4. Want to know what she did? Spit on another child (assault). I had to pick her up at the police station, where she was sucking on a lollipop (and we do not give our children candy in our house). This was also in Florida.

The cops often behave like an occupying army and don’t apply any common sense. A while ago I got hit in an accident really hard. The cops asked me for license and insurance but my concussed brain couldn’t compute what they wanted and gave them all kinds of other stuff. I still remember one cop checking his gun, pulling out his handcuffs and yelling at me. Thank god another cop was calmer, took my wallet and pulled out my license. I am pretty sure I would soon have been arrested for the reason of being hit by a drunk driver in a car accident.

It probably also helped that I am white and 50 years old.

4!!!!

First graders are rare, but from a relative who works in an urban public school by third grade it’s not weird at all. She has students in that grade who outweigh her and can do a lot of damage to their classmates and teachers.

When I was in 4th grade a student pushed another through a glass door, cutting her leg open. Kids tripped others down stairs.

America is violent, it starts young, and it’s perfectly normal in a lot of places.

Well. That guy the news is about has arrested multiple kids that age and that was fine? And arresting kids for misbehaving, with multiple adults being around, was apparently fine by them?

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