He was served.
An irate Detroit judge who handcuffed a 15-year-old girl who fell asleep during a courtroom tour and threatened to throw her in jail has been suspended and will undergo training, authorities said.
Judge Kenneth King’s docket was temporarily suspended by the chief judge of Detroit’s 36th District Court after he was filmed scolding a teenager who visited the courthouse on a legal education trip with the nonprofit group Greening of Detroit. The Detroit News reported.
Chief Judge William McConnico said in a statement Thursday that King would undergo training after the livestreamed fracas to “address the underlying issues that led to this incident.”
The video shows the judge becoming furious when he discovers the girl has fallen asleep, wakes her up and begins scolding her about respect and how to behave in court.
“If you fall asleep in court one more time I’ll put you back down, you understand?” he fumed.
“One thing you will learn in my courtroom is that I am not a toy, I am not to be played with.”
When the girl apparently talked back to him, Judge King ordered court officials to handcuff her and put a jumpsuit on her.
He then threatened to send the boy to juvenile detention, which he described as dangerous and full of “mentally disabled kids.”
“The last time I was there, there was a kid actually sticking a spoon up his anus and spraying excrement on the wall,” he said, shockingly.
In a democratic sense, he asked the other students to vote on whether she should be sent to detention, and she was eventually released.
The girl and her mother had recently had nowhere to sleep, which her mother told WXYZ-TV is probably why the girl started dozing off.
McConico said King could not be relieved of his judgeship, but the state Court Administrative Office approved the suspension of King’s docket and training assignments.
King initially defended the unusual punishment, saying he was simply trying to teach the girl a lesson about the legal system, and said he did not believe it was too harsh.
“It’s not that she actually fell asleep. Some of my lawyers fall asleep, so that’s not a big deal. It was just her whole attitude and disposition that made me uneasy,” he told WXYZ-TV.
