‘Please Don’t Touch Me’: Police Arrest 10 Year Old Boy With Autism at His School (Video)

Someone should be in jail, and it’s not this 10-year old boy.

When I was growing up, children didn’t get arrested, unless they did something egregious. The idea of having police officers in school was pretty much unheard of. Now, the moment anything goes wrong, the cops are called. It’s insane.

Also insane is this video that shows police officers arresting a 10-year old boy at his Florida school. The child has autism, and as he very tells the officers, he does not like to be touched. 

If you’re thinking he was arrested for committing some unforgivable act, well – no.

The boy, a student at Okeechobee Achievement Academy back in October, “was being disruptive in class, throwing paper balls at other students so his teacher asked him to go to time-out,” PhotographyIsNotACrime reports. “When he refused, his teacher attempted to physically remove him, which resulted in scratch marks on the teacher’s arm because he resisted.”

Again, 10-year old boy with autism.

The child “was expelled from school and forced to complete his schoolwork from home,” again, back in October.

“At some point, the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant for battery on a school employee against him, but they never got around to serving the warrant Wednesday, almost six months after the original incident.”

Because the “battery” was so heinous, the Sheriff’s Office never got around to serving the warrant.

The school last week sent an invitation to take the Florida Standards Assessment test, and that’s when the cops were called.

Insanity.

It gets worse.

The police arrest him, handcuff him, as he tells them, “I don’t want to be touched. Please don’t touch me.”

The cops held him overnight. He’s ten. And has autism. And he was jailed overnight, away from his mother, who, as you can see in the video she recorded, had the good sense to record the officer’s actions and to ask to see the arrest warrant. They refused.

“The 10-year-old is accused of battery on a school employee which is a third-degree felony,” WPTV reports.

“It appears the school’s responses are beyond wrong and evil,” Scott Badesch, president of the Autism Society of America, told the Washington Post. “It is a tremendous failure by two allegedly responsible institutions — the police and the school.”

Maybe it’s time we stop arresting children and start arresting the people who think it’s OK to arrest children for being disruptive and scratching a teacher’s arm.

Someone should be in jail, and it’s not this 10-year old boy.