A Detroit judge has been disciplined after handcuffing and forcing a 15-year-old student who fell asleep in his courtroom during a field trip to change into prison clothes.
The incident occurred on Tuesday (August 13) in Judge Kenneth King‘s courtroom during a field trip organized by the nonprofit group The Greening Project. One of the students, Eva Goodman, fell asleep twice during the proceedings, angering King. He ordered her to leave the courtroom and change into a prison jumpsuit. She was then handcuffed and brought back in, where King chastised her in front of her classmates and threatened to send her to juvenile detention.
King defended his actions to local news station WXYZ.
“That’s not something that normally happens. But I felt compelled to do it because I didn’t like the child’s attitude,” King told the station. “I haven’t been disrespected like that in a very long time.”
Goodman’s mother was livid with how Judge King treated her daughter and blasted him in an interview with the news station.
“To belittle her in front of the whole world and her friends, to make her feel even more worse about our situation,” Hill said through tears. “The fact that he was talking about ‘you go home and get in your bed,’ how do you know my baby got a home, how do you know my baby got a bed, her own bed she could sleep in, she don’t have that right now, so she was tired.”
William C. McConico, Chief Judge of the 36th District Court, said that King has been temporarily removed from his criminal case docket and will have to undergo training “to address the underlying issues.”
“We sincerely hope that this incident does not undermine our longstanding relationships with local schools,” Judge McConico said in the statement.
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