A 12-year-old middle school student and her mother are seeking $1 million in damages from the city of New York education department for a February incident where the student was handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her desk.
Alexa Gonzalez scribbled a message on her desk using an erasable lime-green marker at Junior High School 190, according to the New York Daily News. As a result, Gonzalez was dragged by a teacher and an assistant principal to the dean’s office, according to a notice filed against the city education department and the NYPD.
Furthermore, despite knowing the marker Gonzalez was using was erasable, police officers arrested the student, who was perp-walked out of school with her hands locked in metal handcuffs behind her back.
Gonzalez then sat in an enclosed room, handcuffed to a pole for more than two hours at the precinct, the papers note.
In February, city officials said Gonzalez’s arrest was a mistake.
The city is facing several similar lawsuits from students, including a class-action lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union in behalf of middle- and high school students.
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