Five children: Behind the fight to curb the Baker Act in Palm Beach County schools
At the heart of a recently settled federal suit are five handcuffed children forced to enter psychiatric hospitals.
No one would tell Evan’s mother where he was.
The Palm Beach County School District resource officer who tackled, arrested and handcuffed the autistic 9-year-old told Jamie S. he had no idea where her son was going and that it didn’t matter in any case. She wouldn’t be able to see him.
Evan was considered a flight risk.
Jamie found out anyway.
Championing a disabled child can turn even the mildest of mothers into a tiger mom, and for years, it had been Jamie and Evan against the world.
She hired a board-certified behavioral analyst who would work with him at school. She pushed back at school efforts to pigeonhole him.
Because Evan is high-functioning, Jamie said she was often told by teachers that he was not disabled: “My favorite is when they said that maybe he needed electric shock therapy.”
The day he ate pieces of paper and swung his arms in the school office, he left Acreage Pines Elementary in handcuffs.
The Palm Beach County School District last month agreed to settle a two-yearlong lawsuit over its use of the Baker Act on students, an involuntary psychiatric evaluation that can keep a child locked in a mental institution for up to three days.
The district changed Baker Act policies soon after the suit was filed in 2021 and drafted new changes in June.
It also provided Stet with a point-by-point refutation of what it said were misstatements and mischaracterizations in its efforts to help children as well as the lawsuit’s settlement terms and crucially, in its policy changes. You can read it, here.
Critical to the suit is the law’s narrow definition of how the Baker Act can be used: A person must be both mentally ill and an immediate, serious threat to themselves or others. State law expressly bans it being used on children or adults who have no mental illness but who have a developmental diagnosis, such as hyperactivity.
It is also not intended to punish childish behaviors, such as an autistic 9-year-old who was handcuffed and hobbled in 2018 after a tantrum culminating with his trying to hit a 6-foot, 3-inch school employee. He repeatedly apologized to the employee as he was led to a patrol car.
It is not intended to be used even when a child’s behavior appears out of control. And handcuffs on a child were never necessary, said Jean Strout, an attorney in the case with the National Center for Youth Law.
“They don't need to be handcuffed and transported in a police car to go to the hospital,” said Strout. “You know, there's no reason that that's happening.”
From the initial filing, the suit was frequently referred to as an action filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and advocacy groups.
Disability Rights Florida was a named plaintiff. So was the Florida NAACP, reflecting the fact that district data showed that between the 2016-2020 school years, Black school children were Baker Acted at twice the rate of white children.
The judge dismissed both from the suit.
But the advocacy groups were not the heart of the case. Five children were, Evan among them.
In certain court filings, the district took issue with the descriptions of the children’s behaviors, saying they were more dangerous than presented. A U.S. magistrate’s review, though, concluded force was not justified.
Evan, age 9, 3rd grade
Diagnosis: Autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia
Evan’s behavioral analyst knew the 9-year-old well. She had visited him at home; even giving Evan a fish.
Following a classroom outburst, she had taken him to the school office. He swung his arms, hitting her in the chest and leaving a mark.
By the time a school police officer arrived, Evan was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest breathing deeply.
The officer tackled him, pushing him to the floor, saying, “If you are going to act like a fool, I am going to treat you like a fool.”
The analyst protested, pointing out she had not been hurt and the tantrum had passed.
The officer handcuffed Evan and put him in the back of his patrol car.
According to the lawsuit, he repeatedly went back to the behavioral aide and asked her to press charges. She refused.
Jamie said the principal tried to tell her that the handcuffs were not a big deal because they cuffed him with his arms in front of his body, placed a sweater over his arms and then walked him out “so no one would notice.”
Jamie found her son at JFK North Hospital. They waited for the doctor together.
“The doctor came in and sat down on a chair on his level,” Jamie said.
After a short talk with Evan about cars, the doctor looked at her and said, “So we’ve had a bad day.”
He sent them home.
U.S. District Court magistrate’s finding:
“I do not find that a nine-year-old child who is seated with his arms across his chest and taking deep breaths, is an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others.
“It wasn’t until after (the school police officer) tackled him to the ground that E.S. became upset again, but he did not physically or verbally threaten to hurt anyone, nor is it alleged that he had access to weapons of any kind.”
Jamie lost faith the school could educate Evan and enrolled him in a private school.
The district settled their case for $200,000.
D.P., age 9, 3rd grade
Diagnosis: Autism spectrum disorder, language impaired, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder
D.P.’s grandmother was worried about the school’s use of prone restraints. Such restraints involve adults holding a child to the ground so that the child cannot move. D.P. had been left with a rug burn on his face.
D.P. could be calmed other ways. Once, a teacher allowed him to take a walk to cool off. He was allowed to sit down until he calmed himself. The day he became angry and started throwing things, neither of those methods was tried.
The teachers placed him in a prone restraint, but though he seemed to calm, school staff said he talked about hurting himself. The police report stated he jumped on a desk, broke something, told the teacher he wanted to shoot her, and said, “I want to hold my breath until I die.”
An assistant principal said she was hit with a stuffed animal.
No mental health professional was called for an evaluation. A relative was not contacted to pick him up.
School police handcuffed him and told him they were driving him home before taking him for a psychiatric evaluation.
A school police report stated that D.P. said, “I will run out of this school and get myself murdered.”
There is no record of him trying to run from the school.
According to the suit, the evaluating psychiatrist stated that D.P. was calm and not suicidal, had no psychosis or thoughts of hurting others.
“I just get mad,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt myself.”
He was released.
U.S. District Court magistrate finding:
“I fail to see how … throwing stuffed animals and yelling verbal threats can be considered a serious physical threat from an unarmed nine-year old child.”
After the Baker Act experience, D.P. became more aggressive, according to the suit, fearing police and school staff, and “requires ongoing therapy.”
The district settled his case for $100,000.
L.A., age 8, 3rd grade
Diagnosis: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
L.A. drew a picture of a girl with a rocket. A teacher thought it looked like male genitalia. Embarrassed, L.A. ran from the classroom.
She had run from the class other times, usually going to the assistant principal, who calmed her and returned her to class.
This time, the principal called school police and the district's crisis response team for an evaluation.
The police officer reported L.A. said she wanted to kill herself, that she was abused by her mother and that she was repeatedly ripping up paper and putting it in her mouth.
L.A.’s attorneys said she was putting paper in her mouth to use for softening lines in a drawing she was working on.
When her mother demanded to see L.A., the police officer stated she was “uncooperative,” according to the suit.
L.A.’s therapist was not contacted. A DCF investigation did not find grounds to remove her from her mother. The mobile response worker did not think L.A. needed to be Baker Acted.
The police officer disagreed. Telling L.A. he was taking her home, he walked her to the police car in handcuffs, then removed them to take her to a medical facility.
L.A. spent two days in the facility before being released.
U.S. District Court magistrate finding:
“I do not find that an eight-year-old child making verbal threats to a room full of adults while armed with nothing more than paper was an immediate threat.
“She did not hit or harm anyone or anything. She ran from her classroom, made some troubling comments to the principal about her and her mother, tried to leave the principal’s office, and ripped up pieces of paper and threw them or put them in her mouth ‘to use as a blending tool for her drawings.’”
L.A.’s case was settled with the district in 2021. Terms were not available.
W.B., age 10, 4th grade
Diagnosis: Emotional/behavioral disability
W.B.’s mother was concerned about the ability of her son’s teacher to control a classroom for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities. The teacher did not have a certification for working with the special-needs children.
School police were called when W.B. started throwing chairs. He ran outside the school and attempted to climb a fence. School staff talked him out of it. Moments later, a school police officer arrived and handcuffed him.
His mother arrived to find that he was handcuffed in a chair, still angry, but not trying to get up. His father was not allowed in the school.
His counselor was not called, nor was the doctor prescribing his medications. A school crisis team was not called to evaluate him. His parents were not allowed to take him home.
The school police officer stated W.B. wanted to jump off a building and take the officer’s gun to kill people, and that he had been looking up ways to kill people on the Internet.
His parents searched his electronic devices but found no such records. W.B. said he would never jump off a building. School staff said he frequently made empty threats.
He was handcuffed and driven more than 50 miles to a hospital.
No beds were available. He spent the night in a recliner in the emergency room. He was eventually released with a minor change in medication.
U.S. District Court magistrate’s finding:
“So, we have a ten-year-old boy who, at worst, is seated in a room full of adults (or in the back of a locked and secure police vehicle), unarmed, and making verbal threats towards others.
“There was no need for force to be used on a ten-year-old who, although still upset, had calmed down and was seated in a chair or the back of a police car not trying to flee or resist.”
The district settled his case for $110,000.
M.S., age 11, 6th grade
Diagnosis: Post-traumatic stress disorder
M.S., who was dealing with a recent unspecified trauma, scratched her arm in art class with a dull clay-modeling knife. Her parents came to the school, where they were told she was going to be Baker Acted, although no one in the meeting stated they believed she was suicidal.
The school police officer told them there was no other choice.
In a second incident at school, M.S. was seen trying to cut herself with the corner of a plastic school ID card.
There is no record of her therapist being contacted. M.S. was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police car and Baker Acted for a second time.
U.S. District Court magistrate finding:
“There was no need for handcuffs to be used on an unarmed, compliant eleven-year-old riding in the back of a police vehicle with two adults up front.”
Following the second Baker Act, her grades fell to the point M.S. was at risk of being dropped from a specialty study course. Her parents reported she became withdrawn and expressed guilt and shame at being handcuffed in front of her classmates. They withdrew her from school in favor of virtual learning.
The district settled her case for $40,000.
Read more: The original and the amended complaints brought on behalf of the children, the School District of Palm Beach County’s draft suggestion for Baker Act policy changes, its response to the court case and the Department of Justice letter critiquing those responses.
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