Thread by @USATODAY

It seems inconceivable: Educators calling cops on elementary school kids for typical child behavior. Temper tantrums. Fighting with other students. Stealing spare change and crayons.

But it happens.

A USA TODAY analysis of federal crime reports identified more than 2,600 arrests in schools involving kids ages 5 to 9 between 2000 and 2019. That’s an average of 130 children a year and surely a vast undercount.
usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…

Our reporters analyzed 28 million arrest records from more than 8,000 law enforcement agencies that participated in the FBI’s reporting system over two decades. Reporters talked to criminologists, psychologists and attorneys to interpret the results.
usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…

Reporters spent time getting to know Kaia, Malachi and Evelyn, three children who faced police action in school. What was clear was that their experiences left an indelible imprint on their lives.

Kaia was forced from her school in zip ties by two Orlando, Florida, police officers and charged with battery as a first grader. Now, she has extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety, oppositional defiance disorder and phobias of simple things like bugs.

Malachi Pryor, who was 7 years old when he was handcuffed and dragged across a hallway in his Denver school after a shoving match with another child, went to therapy because he was convinced he was a bad kid.

Evelyn Towry, who was pinned in a chair and arrested at age 8 in Idaho after hitting her teacher, was scared to go back to school, became terrified of police and clung to her mother in public.

Still, no one knows exactly how many children are arrested each year. Incomplete federal databases, differing definitions of arrest by states, and records that mix types of law enforcement action against kids make it hard to parse an accurate count.
usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…

Here is a database you can use to review for yourself how many children have been arrested locally, from the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System.
usatoday.com/story/news/202…