Family of handcuffed boy sues city for $15M

The family of a five-year-old Glendale boy, who was handcuffed to a chair after throwing a tantrum, filed notice for a $15 million claim in damages to the child, their lawyer confirmed.
The notice of claim alleges mental and physical harm that will require ongoing medical care because of school safety officer Thaliite Johnson’s treatment. It was filed against the New York Police Department (NYPD), New York City and the Department of Education (DOE), said attorney Alan T. Rothbard of the Forest Hills law firm of Harrison & Rothbard, Inc. Those named generally have between 30 and 60 days to respond.
Attempts to reach Johnson were unsuccessful by press time.
“Obviously if the policy and the protocol were not followed, then the safety officer was at fault, but if the policy and protocol were followed, that means that they don’t make any sense … There should be some sort of alternative method besides handcuffing a child,” Rothbard said.
“I still don’t know what directives if any they were looking at? Who made the ultimate decision to put on the cuffs and to put him into the ambulance?” Rothbard said on Wednesday, February 27.
On Thursday, January 17, Dennis Rivera, a kindergartner at P.S. 81 in Ridgewood, flipped out and had to be taken to the school principal’s office, where he allegedly knocked items off a desk. A school safety agent then shackled the boy’s hands behind his back to a chair and officials tried to contact Rivera’s dad unsuccessfully.
Rothbard said that officials then called the boy’s mother – Jasmina Vasquez – but she was at work at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and could not come to the school. Instead, Vasquez sent her babysitter, Sandy Ortiz, who is “on the school’s records as a drop-off and pick-up person,” Rothbard said.
When Ortiz arrived, Rivera was still cuffed, and instead of being released to his caretaker, the 4-foot-3 student was hauled off to Elmhurst Hospital Center in an ambulance.
“When [Ortiz] shows up at that point in time, she said that the child had then calmed down,” Rothbard said, later adding, “Even assuming that the child was handcuffed, once the child had calmed down and is no longer acting out, is there any reason why you wouldn’t hand him over to the parents?”
Rothbard said that the family believes that the 68-pound boy, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, speech problems and asthma, underwent a psych exam at the hospital, and photos were taken of marks left by the metal cuffs on his wrists.
Rothbard said that once treatment for the boy is complete, he and the family hope to see Rivera’s full medical record.
Rivera’s parents believe that his acting out stems from earlier incidents when the boy came home with bite marks from school.
“The father feels that the school didn’t do anything about [the marks],” Rothbard said.
Immediately after the January 17 incident, Rivera’s parents pulled the boy from P.S. 81 and re-enrolled him in a private school in Manhattan.
“I’m told he is in his new school and hasn’t had any problems in his new school,” Rothbard said, later adding, “Right now I think they are very happy that things have calmed down with the child.”
However, Gregory Floyd, the President of Local 237 Teamsters, the union that represents the school safety officer, said in an earlier interview that the school had prior problems with Rivera.
“The principal, the assistant principal nor the teachers could control this child,” Floyd said, later adding, “[The officer] did the best job under the circumstances that she could.”
Floyd also asked that the DOE develop some sort of policy with restraining out-of-control children.
However, Margie Feinberg, a spokesperson for the DOE, said that the NYPD – and not the city school agency – employs the safety agents and would be investigating the incident.
When asked on Tuesday, February 26, if the DOE had a comment on the $15 million lawsuit, Feinberg said, “We are waiting for the legal papers. We have not received them yet. When we do, we will look over them.”