Video of a Clearwater teen being cuffed on a school bus after shouting prompts her parents to formally complain. Her dad is outraged.
For the second time this year, a handcuffing is raising questions about the way police handle incidents involving Pinellas County students.
The parents of a 13-year-old Clearwater girl say a St. Petersburg police officer overreacted when he handcuffed their daughter aboard a school bus.
Their attorney today will ask the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office to drop a charge of disorderly conduct. School officials already have cleared the girl, saying they saw nothing in a videotape of the Nov. 11 arrest that violated the student code of conduct.
The tape shows the officer, Roberto Rolon, boarding the bus along a Safety Harbor roadside after another student threw a hard object, believed to be a golf ball, out a window. The flying object caused a car to swerve and nearly hit Rolon's police motorcycle as he drove home from work.
The tape shows the officer walking to the back of the bus after the girl, Ashley Marie Mitchell, stands and shouts that she was not the student he was looking for.
Moments later, Rolon approaches the girl as she again denies involvement. The tape shows him twisting the girl's arm behind her back and marching her to the front of the bus as he says, "I don't play. ... I don't play."
Story
For the second time this year, a handcuffing is raising questions about the way police handle incidents involving Pinellas County students.
The parents of a 13-year-old Clearwater girl say a St. Petersburg police officer overreacted when he handcuffed their daughter aboard a school bus.
Their attorney today will ask the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office to drop a charge of disorderly conduct. School officials already have cleared the girl, saying they saw nothing in a videotape of the Nov. 11 arrest that violated the student code of conduct.
The tape shows the officer, Roberto Rolon, boarding the bus along a Safety Harbor roadside after another student threw a hard object, believed to be a golf ball, out a window. The flying object caused a car to swerve and nearly hit Rolon's police motorcycle as he drove home from work.
The tape shows the officer walking to the back of the bus after the girl, Ashley Marie Mitchell, stands and shouts that she was not the student he was looking for.
Moments later, Rolon approaches the girl as she again denies involvement. The tape shows him twisting the girl's arm behind her back and marching her to the front of the bus as he says, "I don't play. ... I don't play."
Story