7-year-old NYC boy handcuffed over $5

Goober

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Stealing lunch money can get a child handcuffed and interrogated by police, if the claims in a family's lawsuit against the New York Police Department are true.

The parents of Wilson Reyes, 7, say police handcuffed their son, charged him for robbery and interrogated him for 10 hours after someone reported the child for assault and robbery. The crime? Another student reportedly accused Reyes of stealing $5 in lunch money that had fallen on the ground. The kids fought over the money and someone called the police.

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The story seems like a case of revenge on lunch money bullies taken way too far. The image of their 7-year-old terrified at the police station enraged the boy's mother, who has launched a lawsuit for false imprisonment and several kinds of abuse, including violating Reyes constitutional rights.

None of the claims in the lawsuit are proven.

Police told journalists many of the claims in this case are "grossly untrue." They say Reyes came to the station at 3 p.m. and left by 7:45 p.m, according to the New York Post. The NYPD dropped Reyes robbery charges and says Internal Affairs will investigate the incident.

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New York City's Public Advocate, an official that acts as a watchdog for city services, spoke out against police in an online statement:

“Seven-year-olds don’t belong in handcuffs. As a parent, I wouldn’t stand for this in one of my kids’ schools. Our school system's overreliance on the NYPD as a disciplinary tool traumatizes our young people, sows distrust in our communities and drains vital City resources away from responding to genuine crimes. This has to stop.”
 

taxslave

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Putting him in handcuffs for a while is probably the best life lesson the kid will ever get. Sounds like the mother could use the same treatment.
 

L Gilbert

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How can it be stealing if the fiver was lying on the floor? Who dropped it? How did anyone know the kid that picked it up wasn't going to ask whose it was (kind of futile effort as I doubt that every kid in the room wouldn't have said it was theirs)? Cops? Good grief; there's no over-reaction there, huh?
 

JLM

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Stealing lunch money can get a child handcuffed and interrogated by police, if the claims in a family's lawsuit against the New York Police Department are true.


A little adversity will do him more good than harm!

Putting him in handcuffs for a while is probably the best life lesson the kid will ever get. Sounds like the mother could use the same treatment.

That would be mild compared to what we would get as kids. Just ask my brother who smashed the padlock off a neighbour's cottage door when he was about 5!
 

SLM

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Um, yeah, the majority of the claims in this story are exceedingly difficult to believe. I think there was some kind of incident, no doubt, but it has been exaggerated beyond all proportions. That's where I'd lay my money.
 

JLM

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Um, yeah, the majority of the claims in this story are exceedingly difficult to believe. I think there was some kind of incident, no doubt, but it has been exaggerated beyond all proportions. That's where I'd lay my money.

I guess we'll probably never know for sure what went on. There is nothing worse for a child than to be incorrectly accused...... I know how I felt at the same age, on the other hand if the little bugger is guilty, age 7 is high time it be put across to him that stealing won't be tolerated under any circumstances.
 

karrie

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Jan 6, 2007
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Children disagreeing and tussling and learning social lessons is now a crime folks. Get used to this. It's really hard for a nation to maintain its incarceration rate if its citizenry think they are anything short of criminals.
 

damngrumpy

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Mar 16, 2005
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Actually putting kids in handcuffs at that age is not a good idea and not adversity will make
you stronger. Nope it makes kids not trust the police in the future because they were not
treated fairly by the cops when they first encountered them. This is not the way to handle
this. I know of people who were harassed by the cops and they didn't like them in future
years either..