12-Year-Old Arrested for Doodling

It's one thing when there are disruptive kids in class: - if a fight breaks out, someone brought drugs to school or a knife or a gun - there may be a need to call the cops. But should kids be arrested and placed in handcuffs for doodling on a school desk? Well, Yes!! say the officials at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, Queens, NY.

Alexa Gonzalez, a 12-year-old Queens girl, was arrested for writing with a lime green marker the words “I love my friends Abby and Faith” on her desk. She also added “Lex was here. 2/1/10” with a smiley face. She was scribbling those words on her desk while waiting for her Spanish teacher to pass out homework. That was probably the biggest mistake the 12-year-old Alexa ever made in her entire life.

She was led out of school in cuffs and walked to the precinct across the street, where she was detained for several hours, she and her mother said.

"I started crying, like, a lot," said Alexa. "I made two little doodles. ... It could be easily erased. To put handcuffs on me is unnecessary." Alexa, who had a stellar attendance record, hasn't been back to school since, adding, "I just thought I'd get a detention. I thought maybe I would have to clean [the desk]."

What Alexa got was much more than detention. Alexa was suspended from school. She and her mom, Moraima Camacho, had to go to family court, where Alexa was assigned eight hours of community service, a book report and an essay on what she learned from the experience.

City officials acknowledged Alexa's arrest was a mistake and school principal Marilyn Grant has lifted the suspension, although she says that allowing the arrest was not her fault and was something that school policy required her to do.

"Even when we're asked to make an arrest, common sense should prevail, and discretion used in deciding whether an arrest or handcuffs are really necessary," said police spokesman Paul Browne.

In this case neither common sense nor discretion prevailed. One would think that that law enforcement officials would have more important things to do than arresting and traumatizing 12-year-old girls for writing on their school desk.

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