By
Ken AmaroFirst Coast
News
October 4, 2006
JACKSONVILLE,
Florida -- We're in an environment where parents are concerned
about school violence, but the Dorn family says what happened
with their five-year-old is not school violence.
The family says it is an
overreaction that caused their five-year-old to spend the night
in a strange place. They're outraged.
"They actually handcuffed him
and brought him to this adult facility," says Janice Dorn, his
grandmother.
His mother Kizzy Walker says
her child was disruptive and the school called her, but before
she could get there, he was in custody under Florida's Baker
Act.
"They told me I could come here
and pick him up, but when I got here, they told me I would have
to wait until in the morning," says Walker.
Eugene Dorn is still in shock
about his five-year-old son.
"It is like a feeling of
helplessness. This is a child that listens to his father and
mother," says Dorn.
The child attends Andrew
Robinson Elementary. When he became disruptive, the school
called his parents and the police.
The police got here before the
parent.
In his field investigation
report, the arresting officer wrote that "school officials
stated the subject threatened to cut another student's head off
and moved toward him in an aggressive manner.
The officer says when he got to
the school, the child was crying. He writes: "I attempted to
talk to him in order to solve the problem. The subject refused
to talk to me and began crying and screaming."
Given the child's behavior, he
was Baker Acted and, the report says, "handcuffed to prevent him
from hurting himself."
The family says the child has
never been diagnosed with ADD or any emotional disorder.
Even so, when they tried to see
him, they couldn't - not until he was evaluated.
First Coast News contacted the
facility's executive director and they allowed his parents to
see the child.
An hour later, he was
discharged.
The family still believes what
happened was heavy handed for a five-year-old child.
Under the law, an officer
doesn't have to see the person's behavior to Baker Act him for
an involuntary evaluation. Even though he can return to Andrew
Robinson Elementary, the family says they'll put their child in
private school.
