6-Year-Old Girl Handcuffed and Arrested at School for Throwing a Tantrum: Grandmother

Police are investigating the arrest of two kids – ages 6 and 8 – at a school in Florida.

The Orlando Police Department told Buzzfeed News that Officer Dennis Turner, a school resource officer, arrested the kids on misdemeanor charges. The department's policy is not to arrest any children under the age of 12 without permission from a watch commander.

Meralyn Kirkland, the grandmother of the 6-year-old, said the school called her Thursday and informed her that her granddaughter, who InsideEdition has chosen not to identify, had been arrested on a battery charge after throwing a tantrum at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy, where she is a first grade student, according to WLFA.

Kirkland said the situation unfolded when her granddaughter began acting out in class due to lack of sleep caused by her sleep apnea, Click Orlando reported. The girl was taken to the office, where a staff member grabbed her wrists to try to get her to calm down and the girl kicked the staff member, Kirkland said.

Kirkland told the outlet her granddaughter was then handcuffed and fingerprinted and had to have her mugshot taken.

"No 6-year-old child should be able to tell somebody that they had handcuffs on them, and they were riding in the back of a police car and taken to a juvenile center to be fingerprinted, mug shot," Kirkland said

Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy, a charter school, told InsideEdition.com that “at this point, we have no comment.”

The 8-year-old was processed through the juvenile system and later released. The two arrests were not related, according to the New York Times. 

Turner has been suspended pending an internal investigation.

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