Police Arrest 11-Year-Old Florida Boy For Refusing To Stand For Pledge Of Allegiance

A Florida middle school student was placed under arrest by authorities after he refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance.

The incident took place on Feb. 4 at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, Florida, where the 11-year-old was taken into custody at a nearby juvenile detention center for disruption and resisting arrest without violence.

The student, whose name is withheld because he is a minor, was under the supervision of a substitute teacher when he refused to stand during a recitation of the pledge.

When the teacher asked him to stand, the student replied that he found the flag racist, and wouldn't stand because he found the pledge to be offensive to black people.

According to the school district's code of conduct, students are not required to participate in reciting the pledge of allegiance.

In a written statement made to the district after the incident, the substitute teacher asked the student why he didn't "go to another place to live," to which he replied, "they brought me here."

After the exchange, the teacher then called the school's office. According to the arrest affidavit, the student was then arrested by the school's resource officer for failing to comply with requests made by the school official. He allegedly called the teacher and resource officer "racists."

The affidavit also alleges that the boy threatened to "beat" the teacher, a claim which his mother, Dhakira Talbot, expressly denies.

Talbot described her frustration with how the school has treated her son, who she described as a "gifted" boy who has previously experienced bullying at the school.

"I'm upset, I'm angry. I'm hurt," she said in an interview with local news station Bay News 9, a cable news network in St. Petersburg, Florida. "More so for my son. My son has never been through anything like this. I feel like this should've been handled differently. If any disciplinary action should've been taken, it should've been with the school. He shouldn’t have been arrested."

Talbot called upon school officials to take responsibility for the situation and for all charges against her son to be dropped.

"I want the charges dropped and I want the school to be held accountable for what happened because it shouldn’t have been handled the way it was handled," Talbot stated.