Chrystal McCadden, a mother from Michigan is now suing the Flint Police Department after her seven-year-old son, who is diagnosed with ADHD was handcuffed for nearly an hour during an after-school program by a resource officer, Fox News reports.
The incident happened in October 2015, after kicking a cart and running around the bleachers during an after-school program, Cameron McCadden was handcuffed despite his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (which is the focal point of the suit) for almost one hour.
When Cameron’s mother arrived at the school to pick him up, she saw her son sitting on a bench foyer with his two hands tied to his back in handcuffs. The officer who was presented did not have the key to unlock the 55-pound boy out of the cuffs. The American Civil Liberties Union has now gotten involved with the case and is the presenters of the lawsuit.
“When I walked in, he just jumped up and started crying,” McCadden announced during a news conference after The American Civil Liberties Union presented the lawsuit on Tuesday.
“How do you handcuff someone and don’t have a key?” she said. “How do you handcuff a 7-year-old child?”
McCadden captured footage of her encounter with officials upon arrival at the school. The officer to whom did not have the key is heard disputing with the mother about how the event took place. In the latter part of the footage, the officer is seen unlocking the handcuffs off of Cameron and being told by the mother to cut it with the laughs.
“I don’t care what he was doing,” Chrystal McCadden declared in the footage. “He doesn’t deserve to be in handcuffs.”
“He ain’t in here with a knife,” she continued. “He ain’t in here with a gun.”
According to racial justice attorney with ACLU Michigan, Mark Fancher, the ACLU is suing the Flint Police Department due to violating both state and federal law. Out of the number of demands the suit list, the ACLU primarily wants to remove police from all elementary schools. Unfortunately, Cameron is now traumatized by the sight of police and had to attend therapy after the incident.
“We’re asking that the police withdraw completely from the elementary schools in the city of Flint,” Fancher said. He continued, “These last two years, we’ve been working a lot with Cameron to get him to understand he should not fear the police.”
Cameron’s mother has a strong hold on her son gaining justice from this experience. She also wants to make sure this does not happen to any child in the company of an educational institution. “I really do not want this to happen to any other child in Flint, let alone the world,” McCadden said. “This is not fair.”
