"I thought he was safe at school." Roseville mom calling for public apology after son is pinned down and handcuffed on campus.
A Roseville mother says she listened in horror over the phone as a School Resource Officer pinned down her son and handcuffed him. She says the officer later told her it was a misunderstanding and blamed the school. The school and the Roseville Joint Unified School District are staying largely silent. CBS13 is working to get answers about what went wrong, how often this happens, and what's being done to prevent these types of "misunderstandings" in the future.
Megan says her three boys were filled with nervous excitement as they posed for their first day of school photo last week. It was their first back-to-school photo after years of home school. They had just moved to Roseville and were starting new schools.
She got a call from her oldest around midday saying he was hungry but couldn't get lunch because he hadn't received his student ID yet.
Megan says she called the office and a woman told her that she would find her son and get him lunch. Instead, she got another call from her son and listened in horror as he was being pinned down and handcuffed by a school resource officer.
"He's just yelling, like what did I do?" Megan recounted. "'He's on top of me. 'I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Help, Mom. Help!' And so I'm, like, crying, trying to figure out what's going on."
Megan says she rushed to the school and was greeted by the officer while her son was with counselors.
"The officer told me it was a big misunderstanding, miscommunication," she said. "(He said), 'They didn't tell me why I was finding this kid. I thought he might be armed.' He didn't even apologize at the time. He blamed it on the school."
Megan says the officer explained that he found her son coming out of the bathroom and told him he needed to accompany him to the office.
She says her son thought the office was one direction, but the officer walked the opposite way. Megan says she reviewed school surveillance video that showed the two walking in opposite directions, appearing not to realize that they were not together.
She says the video showed the officer, after realizing her son was not behind him, catching up to the boy and grabbing him by the shoulder, which caused him to fall to the ground.
Images of the encounter obtained by CBS13 show the officer on top of the boy, straddling him. Megan says her son was then handcuffed and paraded through the campus lunch area at his new school as students jeered.
"He was detained and handcuffed and humiliated in front of everybody," she said.
In partnership with CBS News, we previously found that hundreds of young children are being handcuffed and arrested in elementary schools across the country. The reporting prompted federal legislation that would ban these kinds of restraints in k-12 schools. Lawmakers called it a "hidden epidemic" "causing trauma and more misbehavior."
The most recent available federal data reveals, within the Roseville Joint Union High School District, there were seven law enforcement referrals and four arrests in 2017, with officers on 17 district campuses.
The district did not immediately respond to our request for updated data or for policies related to on-campus restraints and school resource officers.
Megan says her son is so traumatized and humiliated after being paraded across campus in handcuffs to a chorus of student jeers that he's planning to return to homeschooling.
"I thought he was safe at school. You know, I thought he would be fed," she said. "Instead, he was detained and handcuffed and humiliated in front of everybody."
The school issued a vague statement to parents referencing a situation involving a school resource officer handcuffing a student, stating that it's working with Roseville Police Department to "examine the factors that resulted in these actions."
Megan wants a public apology and a public policy change to ensure this never happens to anyone else.
"We can't change what happened, but we can change what happens in the future for other families."
While Megan says they showed her the school surveillance video that backed up her son's account, they are refusing to release the officer's body camera video.
UPDATE:
A representative from the Roseville Joint Unified School District responded to CBS13 after this story initially ran stating the district would reach back out "this week with the information on our policies and the role our RPD SROs play on our campuses."
CBS13 has asked the district why it won't release a redacted copy of the officer's body camera video to the family, with child faces blurred.
We are also awaiting answers to the following follow-up questions:
- Will the school be issuing a public apology?
- Will the school be formalizing and changing policies in light of this incident?
- Has there been a formal reprimand of anyone?
- How is the school planning to ensure this never happens again?
- Can you please provide any written policies outlining when SROs/ teachers/staff are allowed to restrain students?
- We would also appreciate any written policies/contracts outlining the role of SROs on campus.
- Please provide the annual number of campuses with SROs, arrests, referrals, and/or restraints/seclusions over the past 5 years.