An 11-year-old Florida boy is facing charges after he allegedly refused to stand for the #PledgeOfAllegiance.
Police said the student was arrested for causing a disruption and refusing repeated instructions from school staff and law enforcement, said #PolkCounty Public Schools spokesperson Kyle Kennedy in a statement. The incident happened early this month at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy.
The boy got into it with his substitute teacher, who apparently didn’t know that the law in Florida does not require students to stand for the pledge. The boy allegedly told the substitute that the flag is “racist” and the national anthem is offensive to Black people, according to @yahoonews.
In response, the teacher said she asked the student why not go to another place to live if it was “so bad here,” to which he allegedly replied, “They brought me here.”
The sub was identified by district officials as Ana Alvarez.
“Well, you can always go back because I came here from Cuba and the day I feel I’m not welcome here anymore, I would find another place to live,” Alvarez said.
She called the school’s office on Feb. 4 because she did not want to keep “dealing with him,” according to a statement she gave.
An officer and a school administrator tried to calm the student, the Lakeland Police Department said. The administrator asked him to leave the classroom more than 20 times, according to police, and the student allegedly made threats while being escorted to the office.
Police took the boy to the Juvenile Assessment Center and charged him with disrupting a school function and resisting an officer without violence, the Lakeland Police Department said.
Officers would not arrest a student for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance, but in general, would arrest a student for screaming, yelling and making threats, according to police.
Dhakira Talbot, the boy’s mother, said she wants the charges dropped. She denied the arrest affidavit accusing her son of threatening to beat the teacher.
“She was wrong. She was way out of place,” Talbot told Bay News 9. “If she felt like there was an issue with my son not standing for the flag, she should’ve resolved that in a way different manner than she did.”
Alvarez no longer works as a substitute in the district, Kennedy said,. The district will also review training for substitutes.
