Crushing A Fly With A Volkswagen: Head Like A Hole Edition

I really, really hate reading these stories. From Feministing, which credits Women of Color Blog with finding this:

School security guards in Palmdale, CA have been caught on camera assaulting a 16-year-old girl and breaking her arm after she spilled some cake during lunch and left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning it up.

The incident occurred last week at Knight High School in Palmdale and was caught on a cell phone camera by another pupil who was then also assaulted by the security guards.

Watch video of the incident here.

The girl, Pleajhai Mervin, told Fox News LA that she was bumped while queuing for lunch and dropped the cake. After being ordered to clean it up and then re-clean the spot three times, she attempted to leave the area out of embarrassment but was jumped on by security who forced her onto a table, breaking her wrist in the process.

Pleajhai also says that the security guard in the picture yelled "hold still nappy-head" at her, which at the time she did not know was a racist comment.

Watch the video. I'll wait.

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You back? Great. Kids tell you half a story - everyone knows they make shitty witnesses. But now you're a witness. What did you see?

If that girl were Miss Sasha, no power on earth would prevent me from doing what Pleajhai's mother did: confronting the cowering school administration.

But it gets worse. When the girl's mother went to the school to complain and rightfully demand that this guard be arrested - she was arrested and suspended from her job with the school district.

Students at the scene captured the assault on their cell phones; one such student was also beaten.

This is a particularly eggregious example of "You Act Your Age While I Act Like A Big Baby." I'm a peaceful person these days. You'd be visiting me on Sundays once a month.

There is just no excuse for arresting kindergarteners for bringing scissors to school or tasering eight-year-olds or asking girls about their periods. Yet, again and again we have school administrators and security guards - almost always men - treating children like armed combatants. It is inexcusable. I don't mean, "Well, maybe there was a reason and what about this and that..." No. No hemming and hawing. No excuses. No compromise. No "It's for their own safety" bullshit. No.

Grownups are so scared they think CHILDREN are the enemy. What happened to this girl could happen to your children. She's not demon spawn who deserved a beating. She's a girl, like your daughter. She's got an arrest record for dropping cake. And there's nothing except the slimmest grasp on common sense and vast, messy litigation preventing what happened from happening again.

I can't wait for a time when authoritarian punk-asses will be shown the inside of a jail cell, and even more so the authoritarian punk-asses who prey on the defenseless, like children.