LISTEN: The 74’s Mark Keierleber Joins Minnesota Public Radio to Discuss Investigation on Physical Restraints in Schools

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In Minnesota and across the country, thousands of children with disabilities are physically restrained at school each year, but beyond the occasional cell phone video, the highly controversial tactic is rarely witnessed by outsiders. Now, in a new investigation for The 74, reporter Mark Keierleber obtained police body camera footage that reveals how educators and school-based police rely on physical force to control youth in crisis. 

In an interview last week, Keierleber joined Tom Crann of Minnesota Public Radio to discuss his investigation of the South St. Paul school district, where educators and officers restrained a 9-year-old Black girl with multiple disorders on two separate occasions, leading to a state investigation and excessive force allegations.

“Under state law in Minnesota, educators are allowed to use restraint on children with disabilities if they present an imminent danger to themselves or others,” Keierleber explained on MPR’s All Things Considered. “But some special education advocates and attorneys who have seen the footage are questioning whether her behaviors ever reached the threshold and, in fact, they felt like by and large, the school staff and the police officers were more concerned with property damage.” 

Listen to the full interview here:

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