Story Archive

Hyperpolicing Disorder

Michael Davis, 5, sometimes gets into fights at Rio Calaveras Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., which his mother, Thelma Gray, blames on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She says the school came up with a plan: a police officer “could come out and talk to Michael, and the kids are normally scared straight,” Gray said. In his report of the meeting, Lt. Frank Gordo admits he touched Michael, and the boy “pushed my hand away in a batting motion, pushed papers off the table, and kicked me in the right knee.” After failing to calm the boy he’d been supposed to scare straight, Gordo zip-tied the 5-year-old’s hands and feet, charged him with battery on a police officer, and hauled him off to a psychiatric hospital — without consulting his parents first. A juvenile court judge dismissed the criminal charge, and a Grand Jury and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights are investigating the incident. (AC/KCRA Sacramento) ...Maybe someday Michael will become a judge and scare the cops straight.