What is appropriate?
A volatile young boy was restrained with zip ties last year by an SUSD cop, raising a host of procedural questions
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Thelma Gray talks about her son, Michael Davis, 6, whose confrontation with a Stockton Unified police officer was investigated by the U.S. Department of Education. At left is Gray’s 7-year-old daughter, My’Kealya.MICHAEL McCOLLUM/The Record
STOCKTON - Student Michael Davis sat in an office at Rio Calaveras Elementary with Stockton Unified police Lt. Frank Gordo on Dec. 10, 2010. They were there for a counseling session between a mentor and a child with serious behavioral issues.
According to a U.S. Department of Education investigation, when Michael refused to make eye contact with the lieutenant, Gordo sought to get Michael's attention by placing his hand on the boy's hand. Michael erupted, knocking objects and papers off a desk and filing cabinet, tipping over a chair, shrieking, crying and "physically contacting" Gordo with his hands and feet.
The report on the meeting - released this fall by the federal education agency's Office for Civil Rights, says Gordo feared for