DENVER – The mother of a Colorado boy with autism filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging that school officials and sheriff’s deputies in a suburban Denver county “aggressively handcuffed” and detained her 11-year-old child for hours after he poked a classmate with a pencil.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, contends that deputies left the boy handcuffed and alone for two hours. It alleges officials didn’t seek medical attention when the boy banged his head on a plexiglass partition in a patrol car, and that he was held in a youth detention center on various assault and resisting arrest charges until his parents could post a $25,000 bond.
The incident occurred on Aug. 29, 2019, when the boy poked a classmate with a pencil after the classmate wrote on him with a marker at Sagewood Middle School in the Douglas County town of Parker, the lawsuit contends. The boy is sensitive to touch and became agitated when the classmate used the marker.
The sheriff’s office didn’t immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.
In a statement, the Douglas County School District said that it had yet to receive the complaint and could not comment.
