Chattanooga Preparatory School in Hamilton County, Tennessee, has settled with the family of an 11-year-old autistic boy who was arrested last year in a restaurant parking lot and separated from his parents.
The school has agreed to pay $100,000 to the family, and will also implement training for staff on how to handle threats of mass violence.
The training will cover how to identify valid threats, and how to differentiate between “clearly innocuous statements” and those that threaten “imminent violence” while also taking into consideration students with various disabilities.
Three of the boy’s classmates allegedly made a false report to a teacher. According to the school’s SRO, the autistic boy explained that he had heard students talking about a shooting but had not made any threats himself. Nevertheless, law enforcement tracked down the family one night at Longhorn Steakhouse, handcuffed the boy, and took him into custody.
