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Father sues over face-down
restraint of autistic boy
June 18, 2008
By Annie Burris
HUNTINGTON BEACH The father of an
8-year-old autistic child has filed suit against the Ocean View
School District, two teachers and the city, claiming that a
restraint technique used on the boy resulted in emotional and
physical damage.
Robert Velasquez alleges
negligence, civil rights violations and false imprisonment in the
suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court. He also claims the
teachers did not have the proper training to use the "prone
restraint'' on his son in the Sept. 6 incident.
Former Lake View Elementary School
teacher Gina Messig and assistant teacher Mai Vo used a prone
restraint to control the boy, a special education student, when he
started throwing objects in the classroom and hitting teachers, a
school report said.
Velasquez said his child had
scratches, bruises and a broken nose after the incident.
District officials said all of the
special education teachers are trained adequately for their jobs.
They declined to comment on the lawsuit. Messig and Vo could not be
reached for comment. City officials said they anticipate being
dismissed from the case.
Velasquez said his son has been
agitated and had trouble sleeping because of nightmares since the
incident.
"He is never going to be my baby
like he was," he said. "No child deserves prone restraint."
Prone restraint – which means the
person is held face down – is rarely used and is usually the last
resort to control a child, experts say.
According to a report by Messig,
the boy, then 7, was running in his classroom, trying to escape out
the door and attempting to knock over a wheelchair. The boy then
grabbed a girl by the hair and pulled her to the ground, Messig
wrote.
The teachers tried to calm the boy
and eventually dismissed the rest of the children from the classroom
to play outside, the report said.
The two teachers held the child's
leg and arm while he was face down on the floor, the school report
said.
Velasquez said his son continues to
go to Lake View but works with a new teacher. He said he has been
trying to get his son transferred to the Speech and Language
Development Center in Buena Park and is waiting to hear back from
the school on whether the switch is approved.
He is asking for least $25,000,
according to the suit filed last month. Velasquez also told The
Register he would like to see cameras put in special education
classes to prevent similar situations.
A bill proposed by state Senator
Sheila Kuehl from Los Angeles and Ventura counties that limits
physical restraint techniques is set to go before a committee on
Wednesday. The bill would require teachers to "avoid the deliberate
use of prone restraint techniques whenever possible.''
Contact the writer:
aburris@ocregister.com
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