After an 8-year-old autistic student was taped up in a classroom, five New Jersey school staff members were fired.
The girl’s mother, Kasi Spinelli, told a local news outlet that her daughter was placed in a taped restraint at Brackman Middle School in Barnegat, New Jersey, where she participates in a special education program.
“A resource officer from the school called me and said my daughter’s wrists were bound together by tape,” Spinelli stated. “Another half hour went by, and the resource officer called me back and said it was also on her mouth.”
Spinelli added that she was shown pictures of her non-verbal daughter wearing various costumes while bound with tape, which she claimed indicated that it had occurred on multiple days.
The Board of Education supported a request to fire one teacher and four paraprofessionals—none of whom were named—due to the event, according to Brian Latwis, the superintendent of Barnegat’s school.
After conducting an investigation, Barnegat police concluded that no crime had been committed. An “investigation into this incident is currently active and ongoing,” according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
The mother recounted her daughter’s ordeal in a YouTube video that Spinelli’s attorneys uploaded, claiming that the kid was restrained by painter’s tape.
“She can’t come home and tell me how her day is,” Spinelli stated. “The most I can get out of her is a thumbs up or thumbs down.”
Spinelli claimed that she had to take her daughter to the ER to be checked for indications of sexual abuse because the girl was unable to express what had occurred to her.
“I had to do my own investigation to figure out what happened.,” Spinelli stated. “Because she can’t come forth and tell me.”
Source: PEOPLE
