Global Crisis

• Statement from ASAN on the case.
• Comment from Lydia Brown on the case.

• Tennessee: Colton Granito, 8, autistic, white, was "arrested, thrown in a jail cell, and placed in a strait jacket over an outburst at his elementary school.
• Georgia: Patrick, 6, "special needs," black - placed in handcuffs by School Resource Officer (SRO) to "keep him from hurting himself," in violation of the IEP. (My blog post on it)
• Indiana: Kevin, 10, "behavior issues," black - tackled by school police, handcuffed, head injured.
• Georgia: Salecia Johnson, 6, black. Arrested for tantrum. "According to the police report, Johnson tore items off the wall, threw furniture, and knocked down a shelf that injured the school’s principal. Cops said since they couldn’t reach Johnson’s parents that the girl had to be arrested."
• Virginia: 4 year old, ADD, no other details: Arrested, handcuffed, shackled, taken to police station because - "The pre-kindergarten student had thrown blocks, climbed on and over deks, and scratched and kicked both the principal and the director of special education. “The boy was out of control, basically, throwing his arms around and kicking– trying to kick the deputy, trying to run away, and the deputy felt that putting the handcuffs on him was for his safety as well as everybody else’s,”
• Michigan: Kevin, 13, autistic, white. Refused to get up from desk in an empty classroom, so police come in and handcuff him as he screens. Original post here. Re-post with working video here.
• Florida: Ryan, 10, autistic, Latino. Ryan made threats against himself with scissors. School called police and not initially parents. Police dragged him down the hall, handcuffed and pressed to the back of a hot car, and invoked "involuntary commitment" Baker act.
• Oklahoma: No name given, 9, ADHD, Schizophrenia and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, white. Handcuffed as a threat despite presence of father.
• Washington: Wyatt, 6, Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Restrained in bus due to unruly behavior. (My blog).

• Ixel Perez tackled by 3 officers and pinned down for refusing to give up cell phone.
• P.E. teacher drags and throws student into the pool for not obeying commands.

• New York and LA pin down kids then say it never happened.
• Connecticut pins down and restrains a "staggering" number of kids.

• Study -  Tracing the School-to-Prison Pipeline from Zero-Tolerance Policies to Juvenile Justice Dispositions,
• "The Hidden Side of Zero Tolerance Policies: The African American Perspectives." By Charles Bell.
• How Urban Minorities are Punished for White Suburban Violence (via Jstor).
• Weapons in Schools and Zero Tolerance Policies.
• Gender, Race, and Disability Disparities in Who is Subject to Corporal Punishment.
• Zero Tolerance - Moving the Conversation Forward.
• Zero Tolerance - Overview: 
• Zero tolerance policies may negatively impact students with disabilities to a greater degree than students without special needs. Although IDEA '97 requires continuing educational services for any student with a disability who is suspended for more than 10 consecutive days or 10 cumulative days in one academic year, policies that require suspension or expulsion for certain behaviors put many students with disabilities outside of the education setting, apart from educators who could help address their needs. Further, discipline practices that restrict access to appropriate education often exacerbate the problems of students with disabilities, increasing the probability that these students will not complete high school. School personnel charged with disciplining students with disabilities must be familiar with relevant components of IDEA '97, including the provisions for Interim Alternative Educational Placements (see resources below). Other alternatives are mandated by federal and state statute to assure that students with disabilities have ongoing access to an appropriate education.
• When can zero tolerance policies be applied to people with special needs?
• When a school district seeks to expel or suspend a student with a disability for more than ten days, the threshold question that must be answered is whether the conduct at issue was a manifestation of the student’s disability. The law provides a very favorable standard for making this determination. In order to find that the misconduct was not a manifestation of the student’s disabilities, all of the following must be found to be true
• (1) the child’s IEP and placement were appropriate, and the school provided services consistent with the IEP;
•  (2) the child’s disability did not impair the child’s ability to understand the impact and consequences of the behavior subject to disciplinary action; and 
• (3) the child’s disability did not impair the child’s ability to control the behavior. 
• If any of these conditions are not met, the school district may not discipline the child.

• School - Grooming students for a lifetime of surveillance, from ModelViewCulture

Screenshot: A dragon looms over a cowering shepherd.

Rob Barrett, who teaches medieval literature at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, referred me back to the Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian and writer G. K. Chesterton's loose mixture of history and fiction in The Ballad of the White Horse.

In the introduction to the The Ballad of the White Horse, the poet, theologian, and philosopher wrote, "It is the chief value of a legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment. That is the use of tradition: It telescopes history." Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, read Chesterton's White Horse and set his own stories in a world pulling from legends and history. Note that Chesterson speaks of value. This kind of storytelling has the power to spark the imagination in ways that faithful historical recreation or adopting a specific historical setting for fantasy might not. When history is telescoped, an author takes interesting things from wherever and whenever they want and puts them in service of a new story that still feels familiar. We recognize the archetypes, then follow the plot forward.

The power of telescoping history fuels Game of Thrones. In past seasons, the civil war of Westeros drew from the War of the Roses (from the 14th century) in late medieval England as Martin's vehicle to show the disaster of civil war for civilian populations. The Ironborn invoke the Viking raiders of the ninth and tenth centuries, hundreds of years before the War of the Roses. Like the Vikings, the Ironborn aren't really just raiders but would-be conquerors of the mainland. The Dothraki, now largely out of the story (but perhaps returning later), present a potential existential menace on the scale of the Mongols (13th century). Vaes Dothrak, their city, is not unlike Karakorum, a city that combined the values of nomadic life—tents, open spaces, herds—with the mercantile role of a capital city of a major political power. Vikings, Mongols, and War of the Roses: These elements come from thousands of miles and hundreds of years apart, here telescoped in mythic form to Westeros and Essos. And it works.

A mentally ill woman who died after a stun gun was used on her at the Fairfax County jail in February was restrained with handcuffs behind her back, leg shackles and a mask when a sheriff’s deputy shocked her four times, incident reports obtained by The Washington Post show.
Natasha McKenna initially cooperated with deputies, placed her hands through her cell door food slot and agreed to be handcuffed, the reports show. But McKenna, whose deteriorating mental state had caused Fairfax to seek help for her, then began trying to fight her way out of the cuffs, repeatedly screaming, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!” the reports show.
Then, six members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, dressed in white full-body biohazard suits and gas masks, arrived and placed a wildly struggling 130-pound McKenna into full restraints, their reports state. But when McKenna wouldn’t bend her knees so she could be placed into a wheeled restraint chair, a lieutenant delivered four 50,000-volt shocks from the Taser, enabling the other deputies to strap her into the chair, the reports show.

Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid declined to comment on the case but defended the use of a stun gun on a restrained prisoner, saying it was “a means that is often useful to ensure the safety of a person” rather than using physical force to gain compliance. She said stun guns were used “occasionally” on prisoners who are already restrained.

Numerous experts said the use of a stun gun on a fully restrained prisoner was an unreasonable use of force, particularly in a jail setting where a person is unlikely to flee. They also said Tasers are not recommended for use on the mentally ill, that even the Taser manufacturer warns against using them on people in a state of “excited delirium,” and that using a stun gun more than three times is thought to be above the threshold for use on a single person.

• Cult of Compliance - You Need To Calm Down Before I Tase You
• Narratives: The Latest Victims of the Cult of Compliance
• Undergraduates Doing Awesome Things
• Inadvertant Sexism - The Fix Starts With Listening
• Civil Suits Against Police Under Attack
• When You Can't Say: "That Hurts."

When she called police because her 22-year-old son, Elijah, had become agitated during a holiday dinner, Neketa Roberts of Albany explained that he suffered from mental illness.
Despite the advance notice, police didn't handle the situation well, according to her account.
"One of the officers told my son, 'You need to calm down before I Tase you,' " Roberts said, referring to the use of a Taser, a brand of stun gun.
Roberts and her family told the cop he was out of line. Luckily, her son — who is 5 feet 9, 215 pounds, strong and sometimes difficult to control — was able to regain his composure. But the police officer's approach may well have exacerbated the young man's anxiety instead. The officer later told Roberts that he used the Taser threat "as a scare tactic" to get her son to obey him.

For a moment, consider the following monologue:

....Hey buddy. How you doin'? My name is Lou. I'm with the police department. Your mom called us because she's worried about you. I'm worried too. I'm a crisis cop...which means I help people who are mad, angry, sad, upset. I have a lot of experience with what you're feeling today. I see you're awfully upset and worked up. We need to make sure everyone stays safe here, OK? I don't want your passion and emotion to be confused as a threat or danger. Some policemen might take your loud tone as being aggressive....not me. I'm here to listen and let you vent your feelings. It's unfortunate that the police had to be called. We have a lot of tools here to keep us safe, so we can help you. We need to be calm and talk through this. Maybe you see a lot of videos on television. That's not me. They're not you. But if you get aggressive towards us here, I'll be forced to tackle you or use my Taser. That would not be good. You need to calm down before I Tase you. In the meantime, you stay there and I'll stay back here. We talk. We find out together how we can get you help. I really like helping people. I'm going to give you a lot of my time today.....

What does family hear? I'm going to Tase you. At which point, an officer might think...."geez I should have rephrased that."

The context, tone, volume, body language, proximity is completely missing when a single quote is used to formulate or propagate one's agenda. 

As the video played at the news conference, one of the attorneys for the family said Daniels can be heard telling police before the shooting, “Please don’t hurt my child, please.”
A spokesman for Florida State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told ABC News that the investigation is ongoing and they have concerns the video may endanger the investigation into the incident, but the office could not stop the family from releasing the video.
"We investigate every police use of force as a potential criminal case, and that’s why the premature release of this video may well interfere with the investigation," the spokesman told ABC News.

"The officers were faced with a dangerous situation. They have already given statements to investigators indicating Mr. Hall struck them with a weapon and deadly force was used. The reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. The reliable evidence will establish Officers Trimino and Ehrlich acted appropriately.”

The family of Donald "Dontay" Ivy, 39, described him as a paranoid schizophrenic they said suffered from heart problems. His relatives waited for answers later in the day about the death of a man they said was quiet and introverted as they gathered outside their Second Street residence, several blocks from where the incident unfolded.
Police said Ivy fought with the officers, Michael Mahany, Joshua Sears and Charles Skinkle, at Lark and Second streets and led them on a brief foot chase. The officers started performing CPR on Ivy 11 minutes after the confrontation began at 12:36 a.m., according to a police spokesman.
Police leaders have not said why the officers confronted Ivy or how many times he was struck with a Taser. Ivy was pronounced dead at Albany Medical Center Hospital after he arrived in an ambulance at 1:10 a.m., a spokesman said.

Police nationwide have faced scrutiny for their use of deadly force, especially toward the mentally ill. Ivy's family is questioning the fatal actions of Albany police, since they believe Ivy's illness was apparent.
"They would have known that he was mentally ill," Okwuosa said. "And they would have dealt with it from that perspective. Which they did not, and as a result, I had to see my nephew in the morgue today."

• I wrote Kim an "open letter."
• I later wrote about three premises on speech, including -  (1) A powerful white man cannot call out a woman on tone without reinforcing patriarchal discourse.

One of the gifts that this whole week has given me is that I’ve had lots of really good conversations with some of my closest female colleagues. They told me story after story about how they have been made to feel when making arguments… “too political, “too emotional, and entirely out-of-line”. (Again quoting from Watters). Over the years I have extensively linked to the writing of Watters, referencing her as an authority in educational technology. (On 4/9/14 I even said that Watters was one of 3 people I know in edtech who should get a McArthur Genius Award, writing - “…who would better use this money/platform more to change our ideas about higher education?”). Given this background, I had assumed (and I think that this was a bad assumption) that my critique of her and her co-author would be understood as part of an ongoing professional interaction within our IHE community. It was my mistake to think that this history would matter in how my critical comments would be received, and to not fully appreciate the way that I wrote would be heard. It is absolutely true that at the time I would have written a similar response if the authors of the Watters/Goldrick-Rab review of Carey’s book had been men. My blindspot is not that I thought about gender when I wrote my critique of their review, it is that I did not.

In 2005 (the wheels of justice can grind exceedingly slowly) the police in Cambridge, Md., acted on a tip and found a small amount of marijuana residue in a trash can. At 4:30 a.m. on May 6, a SWAT team executed a search warrant on the apartment of Andrew Cornish. A jury would later find the commandos failed to knock and announce themselves properly. As they rushed through the apartment, Cornish came out of the bedroom with a sheathed knife in his hand. The police say he advanced on them. One of the officers shot Cornish twice in the head, killing him.

Elapsed time: about 30 seconds.

Cornish’s father sued, claiming the police used excessive force and violated Cornish’s constitutional rights. The first point was quickly dispatched with. (Lesson: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.) But as Balko points out in his Washington Post blog, on the second point the courts agreed. Not only that, “both the trial court and the appeals court that ruled against Cornish’s father acknowledge both that the police violated the knock-and-announce rule, and that they lied about doing so.”

Yet two out of three judges on the 4th Circuit panel (both George W. Bush appointees) decided nevertheless that Cornish bore all the blame for his own death. Other courts have reached similar conclusions in similar cases, you see — so that must make it OK: The police can break into your home unlawfully and shoot you dead, and nobody is at fault for that except you. Not only that, according to the court majority “no reasonable jury could have found that the Officers’ knock-and-anounce violation proximately caused Cornish’s death.”

That is irrefutable, in the same way the no-true-Scotsman fallacy is irrefutable. If I say to you, “No Scotsman would shave his beard,” you can show me countless cleanshaven Scotsmen. Rather than concede I was wrong, I can say, “Well, no trueScotsman shaves his beard!” The revision renders all your counterexamples irrelevant by definition. So while it’s easy to imagine plenty of juries that might blame the police for Cornish’s death, the court can simply write them all off by contending no reasonable jury would.

The courts, including the Supreme Court, have granted wide latitude to police officers, partly because — they say — officers who exceed the scope of their authority can be held responsible through lawsuits.

“Midsize customers tell us they want great fuel economy, connected technologies, wrapped in a gorgeous exterior. This is exactly what the 2016 Malibu was engineered to do,” said Jesse Ortega, Malibu chief engineer.

• Available segment-exclusive OnStar 4G LTE in-vehicle connectivity as well as available wireless phone charging
• Agile, sophisticated and sleek exterior design incorporates sophisticated details that advance Chevrolet’s signature cues
• Standard preventive safety technologies include 10 standard air bags, with available features such as Forward Collision Alert and Rear Cross Traffic Alert. Automatic Parking Assist is also available
• All-new Teen Driver feature, which allows parents to view their kids’ driving statistics, such as maximum speed, warning alerts and more
• All-new, power-dense Ecotec 1.5L turbo engine with fuel-saving stop/start technology is standard, offering a GM-estimated 160 hp (119 kW)
• High-output 2.0L turbo with GM-estimated 250 hp (186 kW) is available and is mated with a new eight-speed automatic transmission.