HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The Hawaii ACLU is demanding change from the state Department of Education and HPD following the arrest of a 10-year-old girl last year.
The incident happened last January at Honowai Elementary School in Waipahu.
The ACLU and an attorney for the family says the 10-year-old girl’s rights were violated when she was detained and questioned without her mom.
She was then handcuffed and brought to jail without being charged with a crime, the ACLU said.
“That’s just straight up wrong,” said ACLU of Hawaii Legal Director Wookie Kim. “And there’s nothing that condones or justifies that.”
In a letter to the DOE and HPD, the ACLU said the girl identified as “N.B.” — who has ADHD — participated in drawing an offensive sketch of another student in response to being bullied.
“The next day, a parent of one of the kids who received this drawing, was very upset and essentially demanded that they call the police,” said attorney Mateo Caballero, who is representing the student and her mother.
Hawaii News Now asked to see the drawing, but was denied.
“We don’t want it to be about the drawing,” said Cabellero. “This is about a 10-year-old Black girl who was arrested and there was no reason to believe that she was violent.”
“She didn’t bring any any weapons to school, she didn’t make any explicit threats to anyone.”
The ACLU said the school also detained the student’s mother, Tamara Taylor, in a room and would not let her see her daughter.
Taylor said officers told her that they were negotiating with a parent about the matter involving her daughter, and that she wasn’t allowed to speak with her.
“N.B. should have been allowed to be with her parent who was sequestered in another room in the same school at that very time as police officers were interrogating 10-year-old N.B.,” said Kim.
A few days after the incident, Taylor delivered a grievance letter to the school and Leeward District Complex Area Superintendent Keith Hui, which stated in part:
“Although I was at Honowai Elementary, I was not told that my daughter was removed from the premises, handcuffed in front of staff and her peers, placed into a squad car and taken away.”
“I was stripped of my rights as a parent and my daughter was stripped of her right to protection and representation as a minor. There was no understanding of diversity, African-American culture and the history of police involvement with African-American youth. My daughter and I are traumatized from these events and I’m disheartened to know that this day will live with my daughter forever.”
N.B. was released to her mother at the Pearl City Police Station.
“The HPD followed the proper protocol, but we must remember that the DOE is the complainant in this situation,” said retired federal agent Tommy Aiu. “They’re the ones that called HPD.”
“HPD must act on the complaint levied by the school and that’s why the child was taken into technical custody to the station then released to her parents.”
The ACLU said based on the comments made by officers that day, they believe N.B. was taken to the station because she wasn’t taking the situation seriously after she made a comment wondering what jail would be like.
“And for the consequence to be getting handcuffed because you express yourself in a way that maybe you didn’t realize, offended someone or harm someone else that is not the solution,” said Kim.
The ACLU is demanding the DOE and HPD adopt policies like forbidding staff to call police unless imminent threat of significant harm is presented and to consult with a school counselor before calling.
They also want it mandatory for a parent or guardian to be present when a minor is being questioned.
“Those kind of things should happen and get resolved at the school level because again, the pipeline to prison is not a good methodology,” said Aiu. “Absent of an actual threat, the school should try and work out, maybe a better way, a better path for the child.”
The DOE has said it does not have a comment in response to the letter.
HPD says it’s working with city attorneys to address the allegations.
Copyright 2021 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
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By Jacob Geanous / October 18, 2021
Reading time: 6 minutes.
Attorneys for a disabled girl and her mother are demanding $500,000 in damages after police allegedly detained and handcuffed the girl at school before bringing her to the Pearl City Police Station.
Lawyer Mateo Caballero and the ACLU sent the letter to the Honolulu Police Department and Hawaii Department of Education Monday. It also calls for changes in the way police deal with incidents in schools after the 10-year-old girl, identified only as “N.B,” was allegedly handcuffed with “excessive force,” falsely imprisoned, and discriminated against because she is Black due to a dispute regarding an offensive drawing.
The incident occurred on Jan. 10, 2020. Tamara Taylor, the girl’s mother, got a call from staff at Honowai Elementary regarding an incident involving her daughter and another student.
The mother of a disabled student at Honowai Elementary School alleges that her 10-year-old daughter was handcuffed and taken to the police station in an incident involving a drawing. Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2021
When Taylor arrived at the school, an officer told her that the parent of another student insisted police be called in response to the incident, although the officer never explained the incident in question, according to the letter.
Taylor eventually learned that her daughter took part in drawing an offensive sketch relating to the other student. According to the letter, the drawing was in response to bullying.
While Taylor spoke with Honowai staff members and the police officers, her daughter was allegedly in another room alone with police and DOE staff. Taylor had assumed that her daughter was in class until she heard a school staff member say, “We have to let (N.B.) out of the room soon. She says she is cold and lonely,” according to the letter.
School staff then allegedly told Taylor that the parent of another student insisted the school call police and barred her from leaving.
“Ms. Taylor then attempted to leave the room, but as she was exiting she was approached by a Honowai staff member with their hands up telling her that she could not leave,” according to the letter. “She was then escorted to another room to ‘stay and wait.’ … Ms. Taylor was being detained.”
Two officers eventually told Taylor to follow them to the Pearl City Police Station shortly after she was informed that her daughter would be suspended for two days from school.
Taylor asked why she was being told to go to the police department and was shocked to learn that was where her daughter was going, according to the letter. She then drove to the police department, where authorities released her daughter to her after she had allegedly been in custody for four hours.
“I was stripped of my right as a parent and my daughter was stripped of her right of protection and representation as a minor,” Taylor wrote. “There was no understanding of diversity, African American culture and the presence of police involvement with the African-American youth. My daughter and I are traumatized from these events and sure that there is no future for us at Honowai Elementary.”
Through later conversations with school staff, Taylor learned that the drawing had been taken by a teacher on Jan. 9, 2020 and it was the parent of a third student who wanted to press charges, not the parent of the student who had initially received the drawing, according to the letter.
In the wake of the incident, Taylor filled out paperwork to allow her daughter to transfer to a new elementary school.
On May 7, 2020, Taylor filed a complaint with the HPD against the three officers who responded to the elementary school. In the complaint, she said she had not been informed of the charges against her daughter and said there was a lack of probable cause for the arrest. She also complained about being denied access to her daughter while the officers “interrogated” her without her mother’s consent.
On September 21, 2020, HPD’s Professional Standards Office responded with a letter saying that it did not have sufficient evidence to sustain the charges made in the complaint.
In response to the incident, Caballerro and the ACLU sent a list of demands to the HPD and DOE “to settle their claims against the city, the State, and their agents.”
The demands include a call for the DOE to adopt policies forbidding staff to call police to deal with a student unless the student presents an imminent threat of significant harm to someone and to allow parents or legal guardians access to their children while on school property.
Additionally, the letter demands that the DOE adopt a policy requiring parents or guardians to be present whenever a minor student is questioned or interrogated by police about potentially criminal behavior and requiring consultation with a school counselor before calling the police unless there is an emergency.
The letter also calls for the expungement of all records related to N.B.’s alleged arrest and demands that $500,000 in damages be paid to Taylor and her daughter “for the harm and suffering caused by DOE staff and HPD officers.”
A lawsuit has not yet been filed and Caballero is giving the city until November 8 to respond.
“We’re trying to avoid litigation,” Caballero said. “I believe in giving parties the chance to do the right thing without any litigation and I think there are a number of steps that can be taken here to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
In a statement, HPD spokeswoman Sarah Yoro said, “The department is reviewing the letter and will be working with Corporation Counsel to address these allegations.”
The DOE did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) showed that nearly 25% of all police referrals to schools in Hawaii are for children who are disabled.
In the nationwide analysis conducted to better understand who is being impacted by police in schools, the CPI found that students with disabilities and Black students were the most likely to be the subject of police calls in school. Each demographic had a rate of 8.4 referrals for every 1,000 students.
According to the CPI, 4.5 students are referred to law enforcement for every 1,000 students at the school. The numbers vary by state, but disabled students were referred to police at a higher rate than all other students in all 50 states.
“From our perspective, police involvement should be a last resort and for situations that are true emergencies when violence is involved,” Caballero said. “None of those factors played a role here or were present here.”
www.civilbeat.org
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The incident happened last January at Honowai Elementary School in Waipahu.
The ACLU and an attorney for the family says the 10-year-old girl’s rights were violated when she was detained and questioned without her mom.
She was then handcuffed and brought to jail without being charged with a crime, the ACLU said.
“That’s just straight up wrong,” said ACLU of Hawaii Legal Director Wookie Kim. “And there’s nothing that condones or justifies that.”
In a letter to the DOE and HPD, the ACLU said the girl identified as “N.B.” — who has ADHD — participated in drawing an offensive sketch of another student in response to being bullied.
“The next day, a parent of one of the kids who received this drawing, was very upset and essentially demanded that they call the police,” said attorney Mateo Caballero, who is representing the student and her mother.
Hawaii News Now asked to see the drawing, but was denied.
“We don’t want it to be about the drawing,” said Cabellero. “This is about a 10-year-old Black girl who was arrested and there was no reason to believe that she was violent.”
“She didn’t bring any any weapons to school, she didn’t make any explicit threats to anyone.”
The ACLU said the school also detained the student’s mother, Tamara Taylor, in a room and would not let her see her daughter.
Taylor said officers told her that they were negotiating with a parent about the matter involving her daughter, and that she wasn’t allowed to speak with her.
“N.B. should have been allowed to be with her parent who was sequestered in another room in the same school at that very time as police officers were interrogating 10-year-old N.B.,” said Kim.
A few days after the incident, Taylor delivered a grievance letter to the school and Leeward District Complex Area Superintendent Keith Hui, which stated in part:
“Although I was at Honowai Elementary, I was not told that my daughter was removed from the premises, handcuffed in front of staff and her peers, placed into a squad car and taken away.”
“I was stripped of my rights as a parent and my daughter was stripped of her right to protection and representation as a minor. There was no understanding of diversity, African-American culture and the history of police involvement with African-American youth. My daughter and I are traumatized from these events and I’m disheartened to know that this day will live with my daughter forever.”
N.B. was released to her mother at the Pearl City Police Station.
“The HPD followed the proper protocol, but we must remember that the DOE is the complainant in this situation,” said retired federal agent Tommy Aiu. “They’re the ones that called HPD.”
“HPD must act on the complaint levied by the school and that’s why the child was taken into technical custody to the station then released to her parents.”
The ACLU said based on the comments made by officers that day, they believe N.B. was taken to the station because she wasn’t taking the situation seriously after she made a comment wondering what jail would be like.
“And for the consequence to be getting handcuffed because you express yourself in a way that maybe you didn’t realize, offended someone or harm someone else that is not the solution,” said Kim.
The ACLU is demanding the DOE and HPD adopt policies like forbidding staff to call police unless imminent threat of significant harm is presented and to consult with a school counselor before calling.
They also want it mandatory for a parent or guardian to be present when a minor is being questioned.
“Those kind of things should happen and get resolved at the school level because again, the pipeline to prison is not a good methodology,” said Aiu. “Absent of an actual threat, the school should try and work out, maybe a better way, a better path for the child.”
The DOE has said it does not have a comment in response to the letter.
HPD says it’s working with city attorneys to address the allegations.
Copyright 2021 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
ACLU: 10-year-old girl was arrested at school for drawing a picture that upset a parent
"There was no understanding of diversity, African-American culture and the history of police involvement with African-American youth," the girl's mother said.
ACLU: 10-year-old girl was arrested at school for drawing a picture t…
archived 19 Oct 2021 16:27:27 UTC
Police Handcuffed 10-Year-Old Student Over Offensive Drawing, Lawyers Say
The Honolulu Police Department said it lacked the evidence to sustain a complaint made last year.By Jacob Geanous / October 18, 2021
Reading time: 6 minutes.
Attorneys for a disabled girl and her mother are demanding $500,000 in damages after police allegedly detained and handcuffed the girl at school before bringing her to the Pearl City Police Station.
Lawyer Mateo Caballero and the ACLU sent the letter to the Honolulu Police Department and Hawaii Department of Education Monday. It also calls for changes in the way police deal with incidents in schools after the 10-year-old girl, identified only as “N.B,” was allegedly handcuffed with “excessive force,” falsely imprisoned, and discriminated against because she is Black due to a dispute regarding an offensive drawing.
The incident occurred on Jan. 10, 2020. Tamara Taylor, the girl’s mother, got a call from staff at Honowai Elementary regarding an incident involving her daughter and another student.
The mother of a disabled student at Honowai Elementary School alleges that her 10-year-old daughter was handcuffed and taken to the police station in an incident involving a drawing. Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2021
When Taylor arrived at the school, an officer told her that the parent of another student insisted police be called in response to the incident, although the officer never explained the incident in question, according to the letter.
Taylor eventually learned that her daughter took part in drawing an offensive sketch relating to the other student. According to the letter, the drawing was in response to bullying.
While Taylor spoke with Honowai staff members and the police officers, her daughter was allegedly in another room alone with police and DOE staff. Taylor had assumed that her daughter was in class until she heard a school staff member say, “We have to let (N.B.) out of the room soon. She says she is cold and lonely,” according to the letter.
School staff then allegedly told Taylor that the parent of another student insisted the school call police and barred her from leaving.
“Ms. Taylor then attempted to leave the room, but as she was exiting she was approached by a Honowai staff member with their hands up telling her that she could not leave,” according to the letter. “She was then escorted to another room to ‘stay and wait.’ … Ms. Taylor was being detained.”
Two officers eventually told Taylor to follow them to the Pearl City Police Station shortly after she was informed that her daughter would be suspended for two days from school.
Taylor asked why she was being told to go to the police department and was shocked to learn that was where her daughter was going, according to the letter. She then drove to the police department, where authorities released her daughter to her after she had allegedly been in custody for four hours.
Girl Transferred To Another School
Following the incident, Taylor sent a grievance letter to Honowai Elementary and Leeward District Superintendent Keith Hui detailing the encounter.“I was stripped of my right as a parent and my daughter was stripped of her right of protection and representation as a minor,” Taylor wrote. “There was no understanding of diversity, African American culture and the presence of police involvement with the African-American youth. My daughter and I are traumatized from these events and sure that there is no future for us at Honowai Elementary.”
Through later conversations with school staff, Taylor learned that the drawing had been taken by a teacher on Jan. 9, 2020 and it was the parent of a third student who wanted to press charges, not the parent of the student who had initially received the drawing, according to the letter.
In the wake of the incident, Taylor filled out paperwork to allow her daughter to transfer to a new elementary school.
On May 7, 2020, Taylor filed a complaint with the HPD against the three officers who responded to the elementary school. In the complaint, she said she had not been informed of the charges against her daughter and said there was a lack of probable cause for the arrest. She also complained about being denied access to her daughter while the officers “interrogated” her without her mother’s consent.
On September 21, 2020, HPD’s Professional Standards Office responded with a letter saying that it did not have sufficient evidence to sustain the charges made in the complaint.
In response to the incident, Caballerro and the ACLU sent a list of demands to the HPD and DOE “to settle their claims against the city, the State, and their agents.”
The demands include a call for the DOE to adopt policies forbidding staff to call police to deal with a student unless the student presents an imminent threat of significant harm to someone and to allow parents or legal guardians access to their children while on school property.
Additionally, the letter demands that the DOE adopt a policy requiring parents or guardians to be present whenever a minor student is questioned or interrogated by police about potentially criminal behavior and requiring consultation with a school counselor before calling the police unless there is an emergency.
The letter also calls for the expungement of all records related to N.B.’s alleged arrest and demands that $500,000 in damages be paid to Taylor and her daughter “for the harm and suffering caused by DOE staff and HPD officers.”
A lawsuit has not yet been filed and Caballero is giving the city until November 8 to respond.
“We’re trying to avoid litigation,” Caballero said. “I believe in giving parties the chance to do the right thing without any litigation and I think there are a number of steps that can be taken here to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
In a statement, HPD spokeswoman Sarah Yoro said, “The department is reviewing the letter and will be working with Corporation Counsel to address these allegations.”
The DOE did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) showed that nearly 25% of all police referrals to schools in Hawaii are for children who are disabled.
In the nationwide analysis conducted to better understand who is being impacted by police in schools, the CPI found that students with disabilities and Black students were the most likely to be the subject of police calls in school. Each demographic had a rate of 8.4 referrals for every 1,000 students.
According to the CPI, 4.5 students are referred to law enforcement for every 1,000 students at the school. The numbers vary by state, but disabled students were referred to police at a higher rate than all other students in all 50 states.
“From our perspective, police involvement should be a last resort and for situations that are true emergencies when violence is involved,” Caballero said. “None of those factors played a role here or were present here.”
Police Handcuffed 10-Year-Old Student Over Offensive Drawing, Lawyers Say
The Honolulu Police Department said it lacked the evidence to sustain a complaint made last year.
www.civilbeat.org
Police Handcuffed 10-Year-Old Student Over Offensive Drawing, Lawyers…
archived 19 Oct 2021 16:28:14 UTC
