Just read this from the Associated Press. Commentary follows..
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. â€??? Black leaders urged the police chief to punish officers involved in last month’s handcuffing of an unruly 5-year-old girl, a video of which was aired around the world.
About two dozen black leaders, many of them retired educators and administrators, met with the police chief Thursday to discuss the March 14 incident at Fairmount Elementary School, where three white police officers handcuffed the black kindergartner.
“St. Pete just comes out smelling when you look at that picture that’s worth a thousand words,” said Sevell Brown, a St. Petersburg minister and state president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
A video camera, rolling as part of a classroom exercise, captured images of the girl tearing papers off a bulletin board, climbing on a table and punching an assistant principal before police were called.
Then it shows the child appearing to calm down before three officers approach, pin her arms behind her back and put on handcuffs as she screamed “No!” and began to cry.
She was put in the back of a police car and released later without charges.
Police Chief Charles Harmon said officers never should have been summoned to the school, but he refused to say whether they made a mistake by handcuffing the girl. The investigation is still ongoing.
“I think these officers were forced into a situation they had no preparation or training for,” he said.
School officials declined to comment.
I grew up as a member of the first generation of kids in South Carolina to start our education experience in integrated schools. Two things stand out in my mind. First is that in the Upstate of South Carolina we had next to zero “racial issues”. Second is that I was reared in a family where racism was frowned upon, even in the early 1960’s. That said, I must say that in the nearly four and a half decades since my birth, (I turned 43 on the 22nd of this month.), I’ve learned that when an article leads off with “Black Leaders” I’m in for a rambling rant that leads no where except to a tirade of hatred and accusations of racisms. Sometimes they were correct. Most often they were most definitely wrong. Especially as time has moved along. (Of course, your mileage may vary.)
This time, however, they have nailed it.
What the heck could you call it but blatant racism and stupidity? Not just on the part of the cops, (who were apparently trying out for the coveted “Keystone Kop” designation), but also on the part of the school administration and the individual teacher. Then the cops try to play it off as a “training issue”. Good grief! The kid was 5 years old!
I’ve got six kids. The oldest graduates from High School this month and then is off to Nursing classes at Univ. So. Alabama and them medical school. The youngest two are twins only a year away from starting preschool. This leaves me with some experience with 5 year old kids and how they handle stuff. While thankfully rare, tantrums can, and do, happen. Oft times the parent might need to be handcuffed, but never the child! No, there is one – and only one – explanation of the actions of March 14th incident at Fairmount Elementary School. Racism. Racism gone so far as to cause a trained school teacher, a school administration, and the St. Petersburg police to fear for their lives from the temper tantrum of a 5 year old black child.
What a wonderful message they all sent to the rest of the student body.
Simply sickening.
Omar, out.
