Cops Tackle 70-Pound High Schooler…And Guess What Her 'Crime' Was

KHOU

Answer: She was using a cell phone when she wasn't supposed to.

According to KHOU, 70-pound high school sophomore Ixel Perez was kicked out of her Houston, Texas, classroom for talking on her phone. Perez claims she was concerned for her mother's health and was trying to talk to her using the phone. Next, an assistant principal tried to confiscate the phone; when Perez refused, the adminstrator called the police.

What happened next was recorded by another student using a cell phone. The cops wrestled Perez to the ground and pinned her. One of the officers put his knee on her head and held her against the hard floor as she screamed.

Now Perez wants an apology—and her phone back—according to KHOU:

Perez was detained. Her mom says she was turned away when she rushed to the school to make sure her daughter was OK. And as of Wednesday morning Perez said school officials had not returned her cell phone, in lieu of a $15 fee she would need to pay.

"We all know it was wrong," said Perez' brother Chris Cardenas. "It doesn't take three cops to take down one teenage girl, especially a 70-pound teenage girl!"

A spokesperson for HISD would only respond with a brief written statement:

"The safety of our students at Sam Houston High School and of all our schools is always our absolute top priority. The HISD police department and the school's administration are continuing their investigations of what led to the detainment of a female student yesterday. " Meanwhile Perez and her family says she will not return to Sam Houston High School. They will attempt to get her transferred to another school.

It sounds like Perez behaved badly: It's not okay to talk on a phone during class, and if she was truly concerned about her mother she should have asked permission to leave the classroom and make a call from the office.

But that does not excuse the administrator who called the cops for no good reason, nor does it justify how the cops handled the situation. Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous.

Hat tip: Eric Owens / The Daily Caller

Comments

[Restoras]

Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous

Maybe to you, but training was relied on, procedures were followed, and officers went home safe that night. That's all that matters in our police state.

[Live Free Or Diet]

See why I don't agree with the libertarian non-violence policy? I'm fine with not initiating force, but once that barrier has been penetrated, all bets are off.

[James Jeansonne]

Well, you've got THAT ALL WRONG. We are ALL about protecting ourselves. Once attacked, we should be as resolve as a dragon awoken from a sleeping slumber.

Just as after Pearl Harbor, Japanese general was quoted as saying. "I feel we have awoken a sleeping giant."

[JohnD]

You folks are idiots. Especially Soave.

She wasn't arrested for using a cell phone. She disobeyed an order to hand over her phone, probably resisted arrest and was taken into custody because of it.

Is the hatred for police so overwhelming in the Libertarian community that you will purposely misconstrue the facts to make your point?

No wonder the Libertarian movement is such a failure.

[Pulseguy]

JohnD....people like you are the problem. A kid misbehaved. NO POLICE SHOULD HAVE BEEN INVOLVED. The police should have shown up, seen the situation, and left. This was NOT A POLICE MOMENT. Once they got involved they should never have touched her. Three cops pinning a 70 pound girl over her disruption to a class!! Do you not get it? Once you bring police into every type of situation you have created a police state. None of us are safe in that circumstance.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Her mom says she was turned away when she rushed to the school to make sure her daughter was OK

That's good reason for a beatdown. Denying the parent access to their child is completely unacceptable. It shows that in their view, they're running a detention facility.

[Steve G]

If a bunch of fat-assed administrators (true story at my son's ES) turned me away when I went to check on him, I'd probably wind up in jail.

[JulianTheApostate]

I don't believe there are any open campuses in the public school system anymore. You have to get permission to enter the building and permission to access your child. You also have to get permission after the fact if your child misses school (excused absences). And your kid can be punished for anything he or she does while on parole, I mean when he or she is not in school.

[GreenLantern]

That's why, when I practiced medicine, I used to write notes for parents whose kids missed school at their discretion (and for themselves if they missed work as a result) even though (gasp) I had not seen them for their problem. It's absurd for everyone who has an acute, symptomatic, but mild illness that is incompatible with school attendance but requires only rest, time, and supportive care to be required to see a physician for no other reason than to justify their absence to government employees who want to make their own societal rules, violation of which risks an investigation by the local children's "protective" services. I simply decided I would not be their attendance police and enable usurption of parental liberty. My bad.

[Walter Peck]

What's really dumb is that they will flunk a straight A student for absences.

[sarcasmic]

Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous.

Failure to obey is treated as an act of violence.

[Rich]

Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous.

Better treat them like that *before* they become violent criminals.

/Scared Straight

[Jerryskids]

As I said before, I'm pretty sure that if I attempt to go through the 20-items-or-less line at Kroger with 21 items they can't call the cops and have me hauled off for breaking the rules since "20 items or less" isn't actually a law, so why is attacking somebody for breaking a rule that isn't actually a law in this context considered assault and battery?

[Jerryskids]

*why isn't attacking*

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Teacher safety, they all went home that night in one piece, that's all that matters.

[sarcasmic]

Cops automatically side with and defend fellow government employees, no matter the circumstances. They serve and protect each other. If Kroger was a government run store, you can bet your life that the cops would come running if you attempted to buy 21 items in the express lane, and they'd fuck you up for it too.

[Cdr Lytton]

If Kroger was a government run store, you can bet your life that the cops would come running if you attempted to buy 21 items in the express lane, and they'd fuck you up for it too and it would be no defense that the Krogercrat clerk waved you into the empty checkout.

[JohnD]

What an ignorant comment.

[Idle Hands]

Cops Tackle 70-Pound High Schooler.... And Guess What Her 'Crime' Was

Those awful gauges in her ear?

[Scarecrow Repair]

Sometimes, like when they shoot vicious pit bulls or beat up wayward drivers, I imagine station high fives and lots of bro talk. But this? Three cops to handle a 70 pound teen? I can't quite see high fives and congratulations in the station, and I wonder what they tell their families when they get home. I can't imagine even the dirtiest of cops being proud of this.

[sarcasmic]

They'll be bragging about making her cry and scream, because they are sadistic fucks. Doesn't matter if it's a big brute or a little girl. Hurting people is what they live to do.

[Loki]

Remember though, these weren't real cops, these were the HISD's own police force (let the fact that a A FUCKING SCHOOL DISTRICT has it's own police force sink in a moment. I wonder if they have a SWAT team too? Probably not, if they did I'm sure they would have been called out for this).

I imagine these are the retards who couldn't even qualify to be bicycle cops. They're on about the same level as Paul Blart.

[Pulseguy]

Wow! I missed that. HISD must stand for Houston Integrated School District, or something. That is scary. It wasn't the HISD police liaison. It was the police department of the HISD.

That is the story.

Even money odds say they own some military style swat equipment.

[Freedom Frog]

I will never understand how it's okay to take kids' property at school. In my day it was teachers egos and hats. The ones who didn't let you wear a hat in class would take it if they saw them out. Lame.

If the kids are on the phone, okay fine, send them to the office. But to take their property is ridiculous.

[Thomas O.]

I had stuff taken from me all the time by the teachers and security at school. But I was able to get the stuff back at the end of class. What's ridiculous is the student having to pay $15 to get her phone back. That's fucking extortion.

It's shameful that this happened in Texas, of all places. 50 miles from my old high school, even.

[Steve G]

Well, the cellphone camera subtracts 50 pounds

[creech]

While being wrestled the floor, the kid should have started screaming, "Stop groping my boobies!"

[Rev-Match]

Cops Tackle 70-Pound High Schooler.... And Guess What Her 'Crime' Was

Because of those hoop things in her ears?

"We all know it was wrong," said Perez' brother Chris Cardenas. "It doesn't take three cops to take down one teenage girl, especially a 70-pound teenage girl!"

That's where you are wrong. She's just lucky she didn't get shot or tased to death.

The safety of our students at Sam Houston High School and of all our schools is always our absolute top priority.

I beg to differ on the grounds that you called the cops on a girl who was simply using a phone and it resulted in her being illegally and violently detained.

[Gleep Glop]

The common thread with all of these school stories is that the entire edifice is occupied almost exclusively by education majors.

[gimmeasammich]

Maybe some 6th graders should work on a Venn diagram of education majors and Waffen SS officers.

[Agile Cyborg]

So, a footballer knocks his fiancee out and ends up in the news for fucking months and loses out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages due to a suspension yet THREE scum cops violently assault a YOUNG GIRL and the only radar this story shows up on is in Libertarian world.

UN-FUCKING-believable.

[Loki]

"The safety of our students at Sam Houston High School and of all our schools is always our absolute top priority.

If that was true you wouldn't have called the cops.

Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous.

Not if the goal is to condition them to be good little fearful and obediant serfs. Treating the slightest breach of the rules like a felony offense seems to be a good way to accomplish that goal.

[Agile Cyborg]

Broken windows, man... broken windows.

[Idaho Bob]

I read some of the comments in Yahoo yesterday. There was a group of people claiming the police reaction was justified because "she could have been remote detonating an IED." No shit.

[Agile Cyborg]

I avoid Yahoo in much the same way I'd avoid Ebola or Leprosy. That site is a magnet for most stunted brains on the planet.

[Andrew S.]

I thought that was found in the comments to articles on CNN.

[FreeRadical]

Yes, Andrew, I agree.

I comment on Yahoo all the time because there seems to be a tiny bit of hope there. When I go to other sites, I usually have to leave after a few minutes to prevent my head from exploding.

I comment more on Yahoo than here because there is a (again tiny) hope that someone who isn't in the choir might be moved to start singing along.

[Andrew S.]

I've found another place where the comments make me weep for humanity:

Facebook comments on Reason articles.

Fucking A. The people commenting on this story on Facebook make Tulpa look like a cop hater.

[Ken Shultz]

Whew, for a second, there, I thought she might have been smoking, or something.

But tackling a girl for using her phone? That's ridiculous!

[OldMexican]

"What is it about 'Your Children Belong To Us' don't you understand?"

[Robert]

School rule enforcement becoming a police matter, with rough treatment...it's like calling the cops to handcuff a player in soccer or football for being offside.

[JohnD]

Logical Fallacy alert.

[FreeRadical]

Irrelevant to the story, but to get gauges that big, you have to work on them for a while. I'm thinking there's not really good parenting going on here.

[silverfang789]

If they don't return her phone to her, that's theft; if they make her pay to get it back, that's extortion.

[jmomls]

Her mother was do deathly ill this little idiot had to interrupt the whole class to call her on a phone she shouldn't even have, yet her mother came rushing to the school as soon as the policia were called in to corral her.

Yeah, I smell bovine feces.

[FreeRadical]

Yes, it sounds like she was a little shit. But, that isn't the issue. The issue is 3 adult men violently pinning a 15 girl to the ground.

Do you get that?

[jmomls]

*Do you get that?*

Oh, we get that all the f*cking time here on Reason, which I guess is another synonym for "cop-hating scum-coddling idiocy".

[sarcasmic]

Look at it this way. They could have shot her. And nothing else would have happened.

[Tom P.]

It is the usual procedure for HISD and other local districts to treat minor infractions and refusal of authority as a criminal offence. Things that routinely occur when dealing with a children and teens that are forcibly grouped together. Things that should be settled in school.

[D. M. Michell]

More evidence of the police state that is descending upon us. (All hail the imperial government. Dissenters will be shot.)

[GEAH]

Given the gauges in her ears and the tattoo on her fingers, I'm thinking gang member, and there's no way she weighs 70 pounds.

[Waffen Hans]

Sam Houston High School is were all the poor and disadvantage are forced to go to school to get a shitty degree or drop out because it sucks ass. That means the cops naturally come to work each and every day with a few that the inmates are undesirables and most likely view them as such, which is why it's easy to tackle a 70lb girl just like it was easy for Totenkompf prison guards to lead Jews into the showers.

Too many of my libertarian brothers and sisters seem to forget what power and government institutions turn some people into. Once you understand that you won't be so bewildered how things like this can possibly happen.

[Pulseguy]

If you're walking around all day waiting for the chance to take someone down and a 70 pound girl gives you some sass, you take her down. It is way safer than taking down a 170 pound possible gang member.

People wonder why we keep seeing police beat on people who are obviously nearly helpless against them. That is why these cowards beat on them. Zero danger.

[Buckyball magnets]

BuckyBall composed by 216 strong neodymium rare earth magnetic beads, is a spherical strong magnet which was exquisitely processed by magnetic balls.