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Lawsuit Filed Against Sheriff Accused of Handcuffing Kids With Disabilities

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On Monday, August 3,  the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit against a Kentucky police officer for handcuffing two children with disabilities, according to the ACLU website.

Kenton County Deputy Sheriff and school resource officer Kevin Sumner allegedly locked handcuffs around the small children’s biceps at a school in Covington, Kentucky. The ACLU claims the experience was both painful and traumatizing to the children.

The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to declare officer Sumner’s actions to be unconstitutional and a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the lawsuit. It claims that the allegedly illegal handcuffing was an unnecessary and excessive use of force.

The ACLU released a video showing an 8-year-old boy shackled and crying out in pain. The video description says that he was left in that position for 15 minutes and that he was restrained because of behavior related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a history of trauma. An unnamed member of the school’s staff took the video.

See the video of the incident below: 

The incident took place in November and the boy, a third-grader, is identified only as S.R. The lawsuit alleges that another child, a 9-year-old girl identified as L.G., was restrained in a similar way on two separate occasions because of behavior related to ADHD and other special needs.

Shackling children is not OK. It is traumatizing, and in this case it is also illegal,” said Susan Mizner, disability counsel for the ACLU, in a statement on the ACLU website. “Using law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities only serves to traumatize children. It makes behavioral issues worse and interferes with the school’s role in developing appropriate educational and behavioral plans for them.”

The ACLU is joined in the suit by the The Children’s Law Center and a Cincinnati law firm called Dinsmore & Shohl. The complaint seeks to change the policies by the Kenton County Sheriff’s Office in addition to requiring training for school resource officers in dealing with young children and children with special needs. It also seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages against Sumner.

For more information, visit the ACLU website.

Originally published: August 4, 2015
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