A police officer has been suspended after he arrested two 6-year-old students last week at an Orlando, Fla., charter school, including a girl who may have been acting out because of a medical condition.
ClickOrlando.com reports that the reserve school resource officer, Dennis Turner, did not obtain the approval of a commanding officer before making the arrests on Thursday at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy, a K-5 school in Orlando.
Turner will remain on suspension while the department conducts an internal inquiry, Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón says.
“The Orlando Police Department has a policy that addresses the arrest of a minor, and our initial finding shows the policy was not followed,” Rolón says.
The girl, Kaia Rolle, a first-grader, was charged with battery after she kicked someone at the school.
The girl’s grandmother, Meralyn Kirkland, attributed the child's behavioral problems to sleep apnea.
Kirkland says after the arrest, the girl was taken to a juvenile detention center, where she was set to be processed.
The arrest was halted after a supervisor learned of it, Rolón says. The girl was returned to school before being processed.
The other arrest stemmed from a separate incident at the school. That student, also 6, was processed and later released to a relative.
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