there are some really mean 5-year-olds out there and a cop just has to protect himself and be safe. i have seen kids as young as 3 packing AK-47s and M-16s Original Article Police Officers Accused Of Handcuffing Child Suspended Lawsuit Seeks $50,000 POSTED: 5:12 am EDT May 6, 2005 UPDATED: 1:21 pm EDT May 6, 2005 CINCINNATI -- Two officers have been suspended with pay during an investigation into the alleged handcuffing of a 5-year-old boy after a fight on a school bus, News 5 reported. Police said Officers Douglas Snider and Kaneshia Howell were assigned to desk duty after the incident. Their guns were also taken from them. A lawsuit filed last Friday against the bus company, police department and driver claims that Snider and Howell put the child in handcuffs "for an unreasonable amount of time." Izell Finch's mother is asking for more than $50,000 in the lawsuit that also claims the bus driver improperly detained the boy. She is accused of grabbing the boy around the neck after he was struck by another child on the bus in January. The boy was a kindergarten student at the International College Preparatory Academy. The child wasn't charged. The bus company investigated and found nothing improper in how the fight was handled, said Pete Settle, president of Petermann bus company. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050506/EDIT01/505060352/1020/edit Friday, May 6, 2005 Handcuffing, response outrageous Editorials Handcuffs on a 5-year-old? Please, someone, give us a set of circumstances where it would ever be appropriate for police officers to do such a thing. This is the sorry set of circumstances that prompted Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher to suspend the police powers of officers Douglas Snider and Keneshia Howell this week. The two have had their guns taken away and have been assigned to desk duty while the department conducts an internal investigation into how they dealt with Izell Finch at his school bus stop Jan. 13. The child's mother, Mekel Finch, filed a complaint through the Civilian Complaint Authority the day after the incident happened. A police supervisor investigated and later told her the complaint was sustained and notices of inappropriate behavior would go into the officers' personnel files. But no one reported the matter up the chain of command. Streicher and City Council didn't find out that city cops had cuffed a kindergartner until after the mother filed a civil suit last Friday, against the city, the officers and the Petermann school bus company, alleging assault and false imprisonment. The suit claims the child was punched by another student as he got off the bus, prompting the driver to hold Izell on the bus while police were called. The suit says he was hiding under a bus seat when the officers arrived. They took him off the bus and put him in cuffs, but never arrested him. The suit doesn't say what prompted the action against Izell, but it does say one officer threatened to cuff him to a stop sign and leave him there if he caused any more trouble. Imagine how you would feel if two adults threatened to chain your child by the side of the road and abandon him, and you will have an idea of the outrage that prompts a lawsuit like this one. We wonder how these officers would react if they responded to a complaint at a home and found adults had handcuffed a 5-year-old to the furniture. The Civilian Complaint Authority was created in 2002 to improve police-community relations by providing a system to handle civilian complaints about police conduct. For such a system to have credibility, the public must believe their complaints will be heard and relayed to those with the authority to see that appropriate action is taken. A "note-in-the-file" response to such treatment of a child as in this case, and the failure to report the matter to higher authorities, just reinforces the fear that the police can't be trusted with investigating themselves. Potentially volatile incidents need to be reported quickly up the chain of command to ensure that punishment is appropriate and that policy is changed if needed. The way this case was handled isn't the way the city should respond to potentially volatile situations. When problems occur, they need to be reported to top officials promptly. Otherwise, the city and the Police Department are the ones left handcuffed when it comes to dealing with justifiably angry citizens.