Ten-Year-Old Boy with Autism Arrested

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A 10-year-old boy with autism was arrested last week at a school in Florida. In a shaky cell phone video taken by his mom, he kept repeating that he didn’t know what was happening.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand,” he cried out. His hands are cuffed as two officers escorted him to the back seat of a police car.

His mother, Luanne Haygood, followed behind them. She was recording the incident on her phone and in the video, John appears distraught, and yells some profanities.

In the video, Luanne is speaking to the officers, “Excuse me, do you have any paperwork or anything you can say to me?

John, who’s a student at Okeechobee Achievement Academy in Okeechobee, Florida, was arrested at the school last week for felony battery against a teacher in an October incident. He allegedly punched and kicked his teacher, which left scratches and marks, according to an incident report.

The incident reportedly occurred after John was disruptive in class, throwing paper balls around the classroom and hitting other students. His teacher asked him to go to time out and when John refused, the teacher attempted to remove him, and that’s when John attacked, the report said.

The report also said that John had allegedly made threats to kill the teacher in a separate incident. On November 1, the teacher requested to pursue criminal charges since John “had been given plenty of opportunities to change his behavior and has not,” the report said.

In October, John was expelled from the Academy and has been completing schoolwork from home since then. Last week he returned to the Academy to take a standardized test, but “was not being compliant and refused to test,” the incident report said.

After John was given time to test, the officer notified Luanne that he had an active warrant and had to be placed under arrest, the incident report said.

The arresting officer asked John if he would be willing to walk to the patrol car, and John replied, “Don’t touch me. I don’t like to be touched,” John was then handcuffed and taken to a juvenile detention center, where he spent the night.

The next day, he appeared in court and was then released, and is now scheduled to appear in court again on May 11.

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