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Parents Shocked After Their Down Syndrome Daughter Comes Home From School With Her Feet Duct Taped So Tight She Bruised

Feb. 6, 2013 1:33pm Liz Klimas

Parents are seeking answers from a school that sent their 8-year-old with Down syndrome home with feet bound so tightly with duct tape that it cut off circulation to the point where she couldn’t even walk off the bus.

Indiana 8 Year Old With Down Syndrome Has Shoes Bound to Socks With Duct Tape

Shaylyn Searcy (Image: Indianapolis Star video screenshot)

The parents of Shaylyn Searcy, who attends Westlake Elementary School in Wayne Township, Indiana, recalled their confusion to the Indianapolis Star when their daughter wouldn’t get off the bus because her socks were duct taped to her shoes:

“She said, ‘I can’t. It hurts.’ So we had to carry her off the bus,” said Elizabeth Searcy, 29.

“She had duct tape all the way from her feet up around the tops of her ankles. And it was industrial duct tape. It literally pulled fabric off her socks and vinyl off her shoes, it was so strong.”

Watch this report about the incident:

Elizabeth Searcy said her daughter sometimes has trouble leaving her shoes on, which might have prompted someone to tape them onto the child, but Searcy said, ”I don’t know why they couldn’t have called me again this time.”

The Star reported Shaylyn’s parents taking her back to school with the tape still on her feet to help get it off. It took 30 minutes and left bruises on the girl.

Here’s The Star’s video interview with Shaylyn’s parents:

The school released a statement to RTV6 that read:

“We have had the opportunity to meet with the parents of the student involved in this reported incident and have begun our own investigation. We have notified the Indiana Department of Child Services of the incident, and if warranted, we will file a report with the agency. We have also involved our own law enforcement officers in the investigation. When the investigation into this incident is concluded, we will take appropriate action.”

Kim Dodson, the director of the special-needs advocacy group Arc of Indiana, told The Star the situation is an “outage.” The organization is advocating for laws that would protect children like Shaylyn from abuse of “seclusion and restraint” policies.

In the mean time, Shaylyn’s parents have removed her from Westlake to send her to the school she attended last year, WTHR reported.

(H/T: News Net 5)

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Comments (117)

KURT1010
Posted on February 7, 2013 at 6:49am
This is a child with downs….its not about the duct tape …its about the child….some posts are right about the teacher or who ever did it needs to be fired. Also they need to be duct taped the same way and thrown into a river…just think if the child was black…Obama/Jackson/Sharpton/MSM would be all over this story.

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peteto1
Posted on February 7, 2013 at 3:50am
1. Unions are the worst thing that ever happened to the public school system. 2. Getting suspended “with pay” is NOT punishment, it’s normally called a VACATION. 3. It’s a good thing that wasn’t MY daughter these simpletons did this to….

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krenshau
Posted on February 7, 2013 at 1:20am
An “outage”? Come on Indiana. I thought you were better than that.

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environmentalandawake
Posted on February 7, 2013 at 1:00am
Hey gang, I know the Duct tape jokes probably seem OK, but you are making them at the expense of someone who is not able to legitimately defend themselves……Kinda not Cool

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JUSTANOTHEROPINION
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 8:04pm
The person that did this should be fired, jailed and beat (no necessarily in that order)!

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RANGER1965
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 8:02pm
@BOUGHTYOURSILOYET

Agreed, it is nothing but a bunch of irresponsible, bitter, tape clingers. They hold to this idea that all tapes are equal…PFTT!!!

Our forefathers, in a time of resins and wood glue; could not possibly concieve of the taped adhesives we have today.

Does anyone really believe that our forefathers considered Scotch Tape, Black Tape, Duct Tape, Gorilla Tape…and Oh my God! Atomic Tape!! when they wrote the second ammendment?

I think not!

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capelady
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 7:11pm
Is it really such a problem for this special needs child to have her shoes off? What is the matter with these teachers – is there NO common sense in our schools anymore? Silly question – they are all liberals! Brain dead.

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dublinthewagons
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 6:53pm
Always an investigation. Bull crap. Who is her teacher? Who put the duct tape o? Fire them and press charges this is a very serious matter. I have no patients with a child abuser. Period.
As far as the posters with their smart azz remarks about banning duct tape. It is a bad choice to do this as it is no laughing matter. You are no better than the basta®ds that did it.

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Larry E
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 6:10pm
It’s good to see that over educated (at least they likely believe they’re educated anyway) “educators” have so much common sense. Whoever duct taped the girl’s shoes needs to learn some common sense, which is hard to teach so maybe a good firing would work.

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Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:35pm
Down syndrome kids, as with most handicaps tend to be the most popular people around. They take their struggles and persevere. They inspire. They show us ways to see things we might not otherwise see. Wish I could say that about Liberals.

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:32pm
If you let this teacher get away with this child abuse, what’s next, how many dozens of boys are going to go home with wet pants because this teacher was on a power trip and denied them access to the bathroom? If you can’t tolerate little children, oh I don’t know, maybe you should be flipping burgers?

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- Larry E
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 6:12pm
  Wouldn’t trust the fool that did this with anything as dangerous as a spatula or a hot surface.
  
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User851
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:03pm
WTF did I just read? Teacher needs to be fired.

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AmericaMustBeFree
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:01pm
Disabled children are given tous for a reason.. to teach us something about patience, understanding and love. There are liberal idiots who believe that these children should be euthanized at birth.. but if it is an animal.. oh my goodness.. like an animal is as important as a gift from God. Shame on these people!

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AmericaMustBeFree
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 4:57pm
Clearly a special ed teacher who shouldn’t be a special ed student!

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Margyt
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:56pm
I am actually surprised that no one posted a comment supporting the school. (Like, the kid needs to learn to be accountable for her behavior…) The best line of this article is at the end where it says the parents have taken the child out of the school. This sort of thing is appalling to me. It is teacher bullying. The girl needs the school to pay to replace the damaged socks and shoes and then significant discipline needs to happen. The school as a whole needs to be forced to teach all of the faculty about caring for special needs kids. All of that said, this kind of arrogance and inflexibility is what caused us to make the sacrifices necessary to send all 4 of our kids to private school (back when home schooling was illegal) and is causing many people to home school now. Individualism is absolutely antithetical to all public school philosophy. Warehousing kids is much easier if they will all keep their shoes on.

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Mike Austin
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:51pm
Attending a mainstream school? I don’t know why they put her in a school she clearly cannot handle. If not in a special school, teach her at home. You are also taking away from kids who can learn at a normal pace. There is enough distractions with the troublemaker kids. Enough is enough.

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- dublinthewagons
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 7:21pm
  Mike betcha she’s smarter than your damπ progressive kid. From your post she’s smarter than you are.
  Progressive dip shi#
  
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LeadNotFollow
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:46pm
Why is no one at the school admitting to who taped the little girl?
Heads should roll, big time.

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Phlyon
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:45pm
This doesn’t surprise me one bit. I deal with the uneducated practicutioners of Indiana’s government school system all the time with my special needs student. They seem to think that the kid having some sort of learning disability is a wholesale license to loth and despise the student, for having ruined their day or something. The Indiana schools blame parents for the student being as they are, and in some cases that may or may not be true. Passing the buck, and having a poor working relation with the student is unacceptable, no matter what.

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lindyloo
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:45pm
Absolutely unbelievable! Someone should definitely be fired over this and everyone should be apologizing to this family. I am glad my children don’t attend that school. I would remove them immediately! There is a Downs Syndrome child at their school and all of the kids just adore her and watch over her and protect her. But then my kids attend a parochial school… I am so glad for that opportunity…..

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:44pm
We now live in the ObamaNation.
The handicapped are under fire.
Soon, all handicapped babies will be aborted in the womb.

Jesus is so sad, to see his beautiful children mistreated.

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Justanormalguy
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:29pm
I am disturbed that someone that the staff in this school or bus believes they had the right to alter the child’s clothes. I can understand the frustration of putting on shoes time after time, but using duct tape on a handicapped child just seems extreme.

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jteagle
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:26pm
You guys blaming this on liberals are idiots. That being said, if this was my daughter, criminal charges would be the least worry of whoever did this. By the time I finished with this person, they would beg me to call the police.

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nesmond
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:21pm
Trolls will blame the parents for not murdering this child while she was in the womb.

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ChiRho4Life
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:11pm
too bad someone wouldn’t do the same for joe biden by duct-taping a sheet of appropriate and accurate phrases to his hand with the words “IN CASE OF INTERVIEW, READ THIS SHEET” emblazoned in red ink….i’d say that biden isn’t as well developed mentally as a child with DS, but that’d be an insult to chilren and adults with DS everywhere

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TheEDGE
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:01pm
I’ve met liberals who are offended that these children aren’t done away with before birth. They veiw DS children as missed opportunities for abortion. To many libs, the parents of these gentle human beings are neglectful, or just really weird, for daring to love their offspring. I had a young girl ( 20-25 ) tell me that they have tests for that now, so it’s the stupid parents fault.

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- sta
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 4:59pm
  You spoke with Evil.
  I took that test when I was pregnant with my daughter. I took it only to prepare myself for the child I was given. NOTHING would have made me “get rid of her”. Nothing could make me love her less.
  
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