The ACLU of Michigan announced today a federal lawsuit against the Flint police for placing a disabled child, Cameron McCadden, in handcuffs when he was seven years old.

The incident took place while Cameron was attending an after-school program in October 2015. At the time, he was less than four feet tall and weighed 55 pounds. Cameron did not at any time pose a danger of physical harm to himself or anyone else.

“My seven-year-old child was abused and traumatized by this experience,” said Chrystal McCadden, Cameron’s mother. “They kept him locked in handcuffs for nearly an hour. We’re going to court to win justice for Cameron – and to make sure no child is ever treated that way in Flint, ever again.”

“Putting handcuffs on a seven-year-old child and locking his hands behind his back is inhumane. It’s barbaric. It violates every rule of common sense,” said Mark Fancher, racial justice attorney at the ACLU of Michigan. “This reprehensible act also violates the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal Rehabilitation Act, and the laws and policies of the state of Michigan.”

Cameron, who is African-American, has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), under terms of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

On October 12, 2015, while participating in the YouthQuest after school program at Brownell STEM Academy in Flint, Cameron experienced disability-related behavioral challenges. He reportedly kicked a supply cart and ran around on the school bleachers. In response, YouthQuest personnel called for a school resource officer (SRO) from the Flint Police Department and also called Cameron’s mother, Chrystal McCadden.  The complaint filed today also names YouthQuest as a defendant. 

Flint Police Officer Terrance Walker arrived at the school. Walker handcuffed Cameron, locking his hands behind his back. Chrystal McCadden arrived at the school minutes afterward and demanded that handcuffs be removed from her son. Officer Walker responded that the key was in a lockbox and he was waiting for a police cruiser to bring it to the school. Cameron remained locked with handcuffs behind his back for nearly an hour in the lobby of the building, in full view of other students, parents and after-school personnel.

“You can’t handcuff a child who never should have been handcuffed in the first place and then tell his mother you can’t find the key,” said Jonathan Marko of Marko PLC, an ACLU cooperating attorney who is also representing the McCadden family. “YouthQuest should not respond to disability behavior by calling police.And police should recognize that it is not their role to handcuff 7-year olds for running around because they have ADHD.”

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, students with disabilities are only 12 percent of public school students, but account for 75 percent of students subjected to physical restraint in schools. African-American students represent 19 percent of students with disabilities, but account for 36 percent of these students who are subjected to mechanical restraint such as handcuffs.

Since 2014, the Flint Police Department has doubled the number of officers in public schools.But the department has not designed or implemented policies, procedures or training on how to work with children, how to de-escalate conflict, and how to avoid the use of force against students like Cameron.

“No child should ever be locked in handcuffs,” said Bishop Bernadel Jefferson, pastor of Faith Deliverance Center in Flint, CEO of CAUTION, and an executive board member of the Community-Based Organizations Partnership (CBOP).  “We also have to ask: What are police officers doing in our elementary schools? After all we have been through in Flint, our children need counselors, tutors, nurses and other resources to help them recover from the effects of lead poisoning. We don’t need to be paying police to come in and handcuff small children.”

McCadden v. City of Flint, et al. was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.  

Hostile work environment includes discrimination, retaliation against African-American officers, says 11-year veteran of city police force

DETROIT – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan today filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Detroit, the Detroit Police Department (DPD), Detroit Police Chief James Craig and several DPD executives and officers.

Johnny Strickland, an 11-year veteran of the Detroit police force, is the plaintiff in the legal action. The lawsuit charges the Detroit Police Department and its command officers with allowing a racially hostile work environment.

“This is a police department where racial discrimination is widespread and white supervisory officers discriminate against black subordinates,” said Strickland. “It is a police department where white supervisors retaliate against black subordinates who complain. I filed this lawsuit because discrimination and retaliation were directed at me, and I don’t want any other officers to have to suffer in the way that I did.”

“I am concerned about more than just the welfare of my fellow officers of color,” said Strickland. “If I, as a veteran police officer, can so easily become the victim of police misconduct, then the ordinary black person doesn’t have a chance.”

“The leadership of the Detroit Police Department cannot claim they are unaware of the racially hostile work environment that Johnny Strickland and other officers experience on a daily basis” said Mark Fancher, racial justice attorney at the ACLU of Michigan. “Police Chief James Craig commissioned a report on this very issue, which found ‘a growing racial problem’ based on repeated and systemic incidents of racial harassment and intimidation.”

The report of the Detroit Police Department’s Committee on Race and Equality (CORE) was publicly released on January 12, 2017.Instead of acting to investigate and remedy a hostile work environment, Chief Craig publicly disparaged the report and at least temporarily suspended the work of the committee.

Ten days later, Johnny Strickland was attacked, harassed and humiliated by white police officers, his colleagues in the Detroit Police Department.As described in the lawsuit filed today:

While off duty, Strickland inadvertently entered a crime scene under investigation. He identified himself as a police officer and was then subject to insults, profanity and ridicule by white police officers.

Strickland was “unlawfully placed… in handcuffs and detained… with malicious intent and without cause or justification.” The handcuffs were tightened “with malicious intent to a degree that they caused physical injury.”

While he was unlawfully detained, Strickland’s private vehicle was searched “in the absence of probable cause or a search warrant,” leaving the vehicle “in disarray and soiled by mud.”

Strickland was warned not to report the incident by a white officer, who stated: “This goes nowhere from tonight.” 

“Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident,” said Fancher. “Johnny Strickland is coming forward – despite the threat of retaliation – because he knows that what happened to him is just one example of a pattern of discrimination and harassment that was identified by the Police Department’s own Committee on Race and Equality. He wants these illegal practices to stop.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeks a declaratory judgement against the illegal racially hostile work environment that currently exists at the Detroit Police Department; an order preventing such illegal acts in the future, and compensatory and punitive damages.

In addition to Fancher and ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael Steinberg, Strickland is being represented by ACLU Cooperating Attorney Leonard Mungo.

A copy of the complaint filed today is available here.

The ACLU of Michigan and Promote the Vote (PTV), filed a complaint in U.S. District Court asking that the PTV ballot initiative, a measure to expand voting rights in Michigan, be placed on the November 6th ballot. This follows the State Board of Canvassers and Bureau of Elections failure to properly validate the petition signatures PTV was required to gather to place the initiative on the ballot. By failing to certify these signatures, the state has violated the voting rights of Michigan citizens who support the PTV initiative.

Read our complaint.

“The state’s failure to certify the petition signatures is a slap in the face to the thousands of volunteers who collected them and the more than 430,000 citizens who signed them,” said Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan. “The ACLU fought and won the same battles to expand voting rights in New Hampshire and California, and we will fight and win for Michigan voters too.”

State law requires PTV to submit more than 315,000 valid petition signatures to place the proposal on the ballot. In July, PTV submitted more than 430,000 signatures. The State Bureau of Elections recently reviewed a sample of 500 signatures submitted, but determined that 24 signatures were invalid because the person reviewing did not think they matched the signature on file with the Secretary of State. Had just half of those signatures been determined valid, the measure would have automatically been placed on the ballot.

PTV staff and volunteers reached out to the disqualified petition signers and every person contacted confirmed that the disqualified signature was, in fact, their signature. PTV submitted signed, sworn, statements from 13 petition-signers. However, without explanation, neither the Bureau of Elections nor the Board of Canvassers agreed to consider these affidavits and deems the signatures valid.

PTV and three voters allege in the complaint that the state’s process for comparing petition signatures to a voter’s signature on file is arbitrary and lacks standards, in violations of Michiganders’ due process, equal protection and voting rights.  The ACLU has won similar cases in New Hampshire and California.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to issue an order to certify the voting rights measure for the November ballot before the Sept. 7 deadline. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Terrence G. Berg.

Promote the Vote is a coalition of local groups sponsoring a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to expand voting rights in Michigan. The proposal would guarantee a secret ballot, ensure military and overseas voters get their ballots in time to have their votes counted, require election results be audited, make voter registration more accessible, and allow voters access to absentee voting without having to give a reason.

PTV is being represented by Andrew Nickelhoff and Mary Ellen Gurewitz of Sachs Waldman. Attorneys from the ACLU of Michigan and the National ACLU Voting Rights Project are representing two petition-signers whose signatures were improperly invalidated and a Michigan resident who wants to vote for the measure in November.