Florida Child Won't Be Prosecuted Over 'Pledge Of Allegiance'

LAKELAND, FL — An 11-year-old Florida boy who declined to stand for the “Pledge of Allegiance” and who was later arrested after being told more than 20 times to leave his sixth-grade classroom, will most likely not face prosecution, according to the state attorney’s office responsible for Polk County.

Some national media outlets and social media posts portrayed the student as being charged for his political stance, a portrait that wasn’t accurate, local officials insisted.

“This case has never been referred to us for prosecution. We are not prosecuting it. But it’s not that we chose not to — or that we chose to,” Assistant State Attorney Jake Orr told Patch Wednesday. “We just simply have never been referred this case for criminal prosecution.”

The child, who is black, made his political stand — not to stand for the “Pledge of Allegiance” — at the Lawton Chiles Middle Academy on Feb. 4, something that he had reportedly done all year as he insisted that the American flag was racist and that the National Anthem stood for discriminatory treatment of blacks, according to published reports. But on that particular day, the sixth-grader ran up against a substitute teacher who didn’t know that Polk County Schools allow students to choose not to participate in the pledge.

As a result, the substitute teacher will be barred from all future county substitute teaching assignments based on the handling of the incident, according to Kyle Kennedy of Polk County Public Schools.

The case has generated headlines around the country, including: “Florida student arrested for disturbance after he refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance” from CNN, “Arrest of Lakeland 6th grader after argument over Pledge of Allegiance sparks outrage” said an NBC affiliate “Florida student faces misdemeanor charges after refusing to stand for Pledge of Allegiance” wrote USA Today and “Florida Student, 11, Arrested After Dispute Over His Refusal to Say Pledge of Allegiance” via The New York Times.

The ACLU of Florida called the child’s arrest “outrageous” in a social media post. “Students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter the schoolhouse gates,” ACLU officials said. “This is a prime example of the over-policing of black students in school.”

But Lakeland police and Polk County school officials were emphatic that the boy was not arrested for his refusal to stand for the “Pledge of Allegiance.” “This arrest was based on the student’s choice to disrupt the classroom, make threats and resisting the officer’s efforts to leave the classroom,” police argued.

“The school resource officer and dean of students responded to the classroom and attempted to calm the student down,” according to an account by the Lakeland Police Department. “The student was asked over 20 times to leave the classroom by the dean of students.”

The account said that the student also refused to leave the classroom when he was asked to do so by the school resource officer.

“The student left the classroom and created another disturbance and made threats while he was escorted to the office,” Lakeland police said.

Gary Gross of the Lakeland Police Department told Patch Wednesday he was not aware of any discussions to drop the charges against the boy.

“We would hope that the child would have an opportunity to participate in the Juvenile Diversion program which would redirect him away from formal processing in the juvenile justice system,” Gross told Patch.

Florida’s Tenth Judicial Circuit, where the charges were brought, offers a juvenile diversion program for certain non-violent misdemeanors. Such cases never rise to the level of prosecution by the State Attorney’s Office. But it wasn’t immediately clear if the child’s family would agree to the program.

Roderick Ford, an attorney retained by the boy’s mother, Dhakira Talbot, told Patch that he met with the child and his mother late Wednesday afternoon to discuss the case. He referred questions to a spokesperson for his law firm, who did not immediately provide a response.

Talbot, told Spectrum Bay News 9 that she believes the charges should be dropped against her son.

“I am upset. I’m angry. I’m hurt, more so for my son,” Talbot said in an earlier interview with the TV station. “My son has never been through anything like this and I feel like they should have handled it different.”

The substitute teacher was hired through temporary staffing firm Kelly Services.

“We are looking into this matter, but this individual will no longer be allowed to substitute at any of our schools,” the school district’s Kennedy told Patch last week. “Our HR department will contact Kelly Services, which provides our substitutes, to further refine how our substitutes are trained.”