It started one morning in October 2009 with a rowdy third-grader whose teacher locked him out of class with no supervision at Gresham's Highland Elementary School.



It ended, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Friday, when a police officer kicked the legs out from under the 8-year-old boy, dropped him to the ground on his stomach and handcuffed him.



The boy remained cuffed for 30 to 40 minutes until shortly before his mother came to pick him up, the suit says.



The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Portland and alleges the use of excessive force, false imprisonment/false arrest, assault and battery, the violation of due process and negligence.



It also claims that the boy was the victim of discrimination because he has a disability; he was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in April 2008.



"School should be a safe and happy place for your child," Leslie Vincent, the boy's mother, said Monday. "He shouldn't be restrained or locked out of classrooms or secluded from other kids because of behavior that is part of a disability." Since the incident, she said, her son has suffered from anxiety and other ailments.



The suit names Gresham Officer James Seymour, three Highland Elementary faculty members -- Terri Bothwell, Nancy Seltzer and Sarah Ludlow -- and the Gresham-Barlow School District.



Seymour could not be reached Monday, and the Gresham Police Department declined to comment. Seltzer also declined to comment, and neither Bothwell nor Ludlow could be reached.



The school district declined to comment on the suit but said that locking a student out of a classroom without supervision "is not a common practice."



The boy, who is not named in the suit, is now 9 and in the fourth grade at another elementary in the district. He has a long history of behavioral problems, Vincent said, starting in kindergarten. He's been suspended frequently, and has had a difficult time sitting still and focusing his attention. Sometimes he would crawl under his desk, Vincent said.



In addition to ADHD, he has been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. Children with the disorder are often stubborn, defiant and moody, and sometimes display explosive behavior, said Dr. Joel Nigg, an ADHD expert at Oregon Health & Science University.



He was not familiar with the suit but said that in general, dealing with such youngsters presents a dilemma for educators. Students who display disruptive behavior associated with ADHD either need to be isolated with supervision or have someone work with them individually, Nigg said.



"In a perfect world," he added, "you'd have an aide who could go one-on-one with that child as needed." But he acknowledged that not all schools have the resources for that kind of intervention.



The Gresham-Barlow district, according to the suit, had an unofficial policy of locking students with learning and behavioral disabilities out of their classrooms and allowing them to roam the hallways on their own. And the suit claims that Bothwell, principal at Highland Elementary, had given Seltzer and Ludlow written instructions to lock the boy out of the classroom when his behavior was disruptive.



The lawsuit gives this account of what happened the morning of Oct. 14, 2009:



Seltzer sent the boy from her room for allegedly disrupting class and refused to let him back in. Vincent said her son was sent from the room because he refused to finish a math paper.



Once he realized he was locked out, the boy, 4-foot-6 and about 60 pounds at the time, began running around and throwing chairs in the hallway.



Bothwell called the district superintendent's office and reported that the boy had left the school, which was incorrect. Someone from that office then called police. Seymour arrived a few minutes later, shortly before noon. He encountered the boy in the hallway and ordered him to "drop."



The boy didn't obey. So Seymour knocked his legs out from under him and "forcibly dropped him to the ground on his stomach." Then he handcuffed the boy behind his back and placed him in a classroom with no other students. Vincent said Seymour was with her son when she arrived, and other adults may have been in the class at other points.



Then, before Vincent left with her son, Seymour offered her some advice:



"Defendant Seymour then lectured Ms. Vincent about the importance of parental discipline and a regimented diet in raising children and advised her to start taking her son to church," the suit says.



Staff writer Matt Buxton and researcher Lynne Palombo contributed to this story.



-- Stephen Beaven

