The mother of an 8-year-old boy who attacked and threatened to kill teachers with a sharp stick is criticizing police for using pepper spray on her child.
But police say doing so probably prevented the 82-pound boy from injuring classmates, police and himself.
“Of all the choices they had, they probably chose the best option,” said Steve Davis, Lakewood police spokesman. “There was no violation of policy.”
Jefferson County Public Schools officials say they are seeing more children in preschool and elementary school exhibiting assaultive or threatening behavior.
“As a district we’ve been very concerned about it,” said Polly Ortiz-Lutz, the school district’s director of special education.
On Feb. 22, the boy, whose name was not released, got into trouble on the bus on the way to Glennon Heights Elementary School, Davis said.
When the child entered the classroom, he began yelling and threatening to kill his teacher and another staff member.
The staff members were so afraid that they barricaded themselves in an adjacent office while the boy threw chairs and a TV at the door, Davis said. He was ramming the door with a cart. He then broke off a piece of wall molding.
“I wanted to make something sharp for like if they came out because I was so mad at them,” the boy said in an interview with 9News, which first reported the incident.
The boy’s mother, Mandy, told 9News that police treated her son like a common criminal. She didn’t excuse her son’s actions but said police could have talked him down as officers had done two other times when police were called to the school.
But Davis said the longer police waited, the more likely it was that someone, including the boy, could be hurt.
“If we would have gone hands-on, there’s a good chance there would have been someone hurt,” he said. “It was something that had to be defused quickly.”
Davis said because of the boy’s age, he was not charged with a crime.
The mother told 9News that her son now attends a special school for kids with behavioral problems.
Each school has teachers who are specially trained to prevent or de-escalate bad behavior by students. The teachers working with the 8-year-old boy had that training, Ortiz-Lutz said.
The school has individualized protocols for dealing with certain students who have a track record of bad behavior, Ortiz-Lutz said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
