Lawsuit accuses security guard of handcuffing first-graders for talking in class

By Joel Hood, Tribune reporter
Chicago Tribune
Sep. 02, 2011

The attorney for a family suing Chicago Public Schools over the alleged handcuffing of a first-grader in 2010 said Tuesday that the boy was among several 6- and 7-year-olds who were detained and handcuffed for hours for talking in class.

In an email to the Tribune, attorney Michael Carin said school officials at Carver Primary School on the Far South Side authorized the on-campus security guard in March 2010 to discipline some first-graders who were being disruptive.

Giving details not disclosed in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, Carin said the school's security officer removed the students from class and held them in another office on campus where there were no other adults present. Carin said the students were handcuffed for hours and told that "they were going to prison and would never see their parents again."

"There appears to be no reason for an officer to isolate 6- and 7-year-old children, place them in handcuffs and threaten them for hours during a school day, or any other day," Carin wrote.

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