NYPD Handcuffed Black First Grader- Police say 'he was a danger'
Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 06:49PM 
From [HERE] and [HERE] A family is outraged after a 7-year-old boy, a special education student, was handcuffed by the NYPD at his school. NYPD cops handcuffed Joseph Anderson because he was ‘acting in a threatening manner’ at school after becoming upset while decorating an Easter egg.Cops say they were protecting the boy and others after his emotional outburst. His mother says it was just plain wrong.
School staff threatened to send him to the hospital if he did not calm down - and he jumped up, saying: ‘I just want my mummy,’ his mother told the New York Daily News.
The NYPD has also defended its actions, with a spokesman saying he was ‘acting in a threatening manner’ and another source claiming he was waving scissors. ‘He was a danger to himself and others in the classroom,’ a spokesman told the New York Daily News.
‘He started spitting and cursing at the officers. The handcuffs were used to restrain the child because of his behaviour. He was a danger to himself.’
Ms. Anderson claims the school called her at 12:30pm last Wednesday to say Joseph was having a bad day and she said she would come to pick him up.
She arrived at the school at 1:45pm but by that time he had already gone and she didn’t find out about him being handcuffed until she got to the hospital.
‘Why handcuff him,’ she said. ‘Why get the cops involved? He's only seven.’
The special-needs pupil is so traumatised by what happened that he’s wetting himself, throwing up and screaming when he hears ambulance sirens, his mother says.
‘He's really traumatised,’ Ms Anderson told the New York Daily News. ‘I don't let him watch the news any more, because if he sees cops, he cries.
‘I was crying. I broke down,’ she said. ‘They know that my son is special ed. It's like they're trying to get rid of him, and it worked because I'm not sending him back there.’
Education officials say staff were only trying to protect the boy and his classmates.
‘The school tried to defuse the situation and then called for outside assistance when there was a concern the child would harm himself or others,’ a city spokesman said.
This is the third time the school has sent the boy to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation - and it has suspended him for two weeks.
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