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Handcuffed Preschooler Reinstated in Greene

After some public uproar and contact from a civil liberties group, the four-year-old who was cuffed and shackled by a Greene County school resource officer will be invited back to school with his record wiped clean. The fight, however, goes on.

The Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute is claiming a victory of sorts on behalf  of the misbehaving pre-schooler who was hauled out of class, handcuffed, placed in a squad car, and then-- back at the sheriff's office-- locked in leg irons.

The school system has now invited him back, and officials have erased his disciplinary record, but attorney and Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead isn’t through.

"They also say they're now going to review their restraint policies, which is good; we're going to follow up and make sure that they're doing that."

In Richmond, Staunton-area Delegate Dickie Bell has filed a bill to regulate the use of restraints and seclusion in schools.

For Whitehead, who says he gets weekly entreaties across America to intervene on behalf of handcuffed students, what happened in Greene was shocking.

"It's unusual to handcuff a child, but it's really unusual to put shackles on them like they're a serial killer."

Whitehead says he's never before encountered such treatment on a child so young, but the County Sheriff, Steve Smith, continues to defend his deputy, saying the action was needed to protect other children, teachers, and administrators.

As for the boy, Whitehead says he is too traumatized to return to Nathanael Greene Primary School.   Instead, his parents have enrolled him outside of the county.

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