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Letter to the editor

Another circus hits town

By ERIC DEGGANS
Published May 8, 2005

Those who felt conflicted, enraged or saddened by the widely shown video of a Fairmount Park Elementary School student handcuffed by police can now rest easy.

All the questions it raises - Did police overreact? Why were they called anyway? Can't the school handle one angry girl? How involved are her relatives? Was the fact that she is black a factor? - are due to be answered soon.

The Rev. Al is on the case.

The case of the 5-year-old girl has snowballed, drawing an ever-expanding number of participants, each claiming to be searching for the truth.

There's Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is calling for new school and police policies banning the arrest of small children in school. There's Jesse Jackson, who interviewed the girl and her mother, Inga M. Akins, on television and referred Akins to a high-profile, Stuart-based law firm. There's the newly resurrected tabloid TV show A Current Affair, which sewed up Atkins in an exclusive contract and featured several stories on the issue, including the interview with Jackson. And there are the lawyers, from Akins' former counsel John Trevena to her new lawyers, from Willie Gary's "giant-killer" firm.

Each cog in this growing machine of publicity, commentary and activism claims to be representing the best interests of the girl and her family.

My fear: that the avalanche of advocates surfacing to speak on this issue will make it tougher to find a solution - as their own narrow priorities and objectives overwhelm a much-needed public debate.

Ask the Rev. Jarett B. Maupin, national youth director of Sharpton's National Action Network, and he shrugs off talk of conflicting agendas or confused messages in the rush to speak for Akins.

"There are always going to be a lot of groups involved . . . that's a natural reaction in the community," said Maupin, who wasn't sure when someone from Sharpton's office might come to St. Petersburg. "We want to see some procedural changes. We want to see it written in the books. It is not legal, lawful or moral to arrest small children."

But police and school district officials already admit city cops should not have been called to Fairmount Park Elementary. Given the national embarrassment the authorities have endured so far, does anyone think another elementary school kid will be handcuffed in Pinellas County?

"Admitting guilt is not creating policy changes," Maupin noted. "We hope to be part of the group which says what those changes should be."

Of course, this is a dynamic we've seen many times before, fueled by modern media's insatiable hunger for emotion-charged, visually arresting stories. Though local media had reported on the girl's arrest the month before, it didn't become a national megastory until Trevena released copies of video from the incident. Traveling at the speed of scandal, outlets from ABC's Good Morning America to Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor offered repeated displays of the 5-year-old bent over a table with police restraining her wrists.

Like clockwork, it unfolded: Juicy video images begat breathless news coverage on morning TV shows, tabloid television programs and cable news channels, bringing national outrage, condemnation from national civil rights activists and at least one likely lawsuit.

But instead of illuminating the issues at hand, much of this TV news coverage was content to wallow in the emotion of the moment.

Consider Jackson's April 27 appearance with Akins on A Current Affair. Focused on the injustice of the arrest, the spot featured Jackson speaking by satellite from Charlotte, N.C., to Akins, her daughter and Affair host Tim Green.

While many news reports, including those in the St. Petersburg Times, did not name Akins' daughter, Affair did - with Jackson denouncing the arrest as "extreme" and offering to help Akins find legal representation.

And with Akins under exclusive contract to the show, in a deal not disclosed to viewers, little effort was made to explore questions outside the rush to back her criticisms of school and police officials.

Did Akins' admitted friction with school officials make it tougher to explore options for controlling the child? Because this was the second time a tantrum from the child resulted in a call to police, why weren't better procedures in place for handling her? And if she has a tantrum at her new school, do they have any other strategies ready beyond calling police?

While it might be demanding a lot to ask such substance from a program that has also featured stories on Bigfoot and a dog that seems to bark "I love you," the show's focus on shock and outrage epitomized the worst excesses found in coverage elsewhere.

Producers from the show declined to comment.

Akins' new lawyer, Tricia Hoffler, says she isn't bothered by the media feeding frenzy or the big-name activists lining up. "There's no way you can be an advocate on a case like this without working with grass-roots civil rights groups," said Hoffler, who said she doesn't know if the girl's new school has worked out a policy for handling her if she has a similar tantrum there. "If people don't stand up and pay attention, it could happen again and again."

Perhaps. But a lot of agendas are on display as more people speak out on the issue - from the reflected fame that comes from continued media attention to the money that might come from a successful lawsuit.

Lost somewhere in the middle of all this is an understanding of how a group of seemingly well-intentioned educators and police wound up handcuffing a kindergartener.

And the sad fact is, despite a slew of attention from 24-hour news networks and high-powered TV news divisions, much of the media coverage has done nothing to help answer that poignant question.

[Last modified May 8, 2005, 00:46:16]