On January 28, a school resource officer forcibly restrained a seven-year-old boy, pinning him to the concrete breezeway on the DC Virgo Preparatory Academy campus, after what authorities said was a prolonged physical and emotional outburst.
The boy’s parents, Coleman and Emilie Paiva, say their son has disabilities and is protected by laws and policies guiding the management of his behavioral issues. Those rules weren’t followed by the SRO on campus, they say, leaving their child traumatized — and them frustrated with a lack of accountability over what they see as a serious misuse of force. WHQR agreed not to use the boy’s name to help prevent harassment.
The Paivas shared a four-minute video, provided by the school, which shows New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chloe Daugherty, the SRO, restraining their child. Coleman Paiva also shared the video on social media. The Paivas spoke highly of DC Virgo in the wake of the incident, but said they wanted accountability for Daugherty.
NHCSO stands by Daugherty, saying the incident was investigated and that she “did everything correctly.” A NHCSO spokesperson said that the public has not seen a longer, roughly 60-minute bodycam recording of the Paivas’ son behaving destructively prior to being restrained. Some details remain unclear, in part because UNCW declined to comment on the incident, and were unwiling to confirm or deny some important details.
"UNCW and D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy are aware of an incident involving a student and a school resource officer provided by the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office. While we cannot share details on issues involving students, the university and its partners are committed to creating a safe, inviting, and orderly campus environment," a UNCW spokesperson wrote in an email.
Background
The Paivas’ son has several disabilities and is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a legally binding document under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that provides additional assurances of a tailored special education plan.
Coleman Paiva said they moved their son to DC Virgo, a K-8 lab school run by UNCW, because it has a strong exceptional children (EC) program and is a “restorative justice school.” He said that, after a period of adjustment, their son was doing well by September of last year. However, for their son, the holidays and his birthday — which came shortly after the incident — are difficult, his mother said, in part because he is adopted.
“He struggles around holidays, like a lot of kids with trauma, especially separation from family,” Emilie Paiva said. “So it’s always an escalation period that we go through, from about Thanksgiving through mid-February every year."
At DC Virgo, the Paivas’s son had a behavioral specialist and crisis response team, and he was working on dealing with dysregulation, which could be severe. Emilie Paiva said the staff had done an excellent job, even during intense episodes.
Breezeway video
In the video, the behavioral specialist who works with the Paivas’ son is visible, standing in the breezeway outside DC Virgo. Daugherty approaches and stands next to the specialist. About a minute and 20 seconds into the video, their son approaches the specialist, swinging a puffy jacket at her.
Daugherty intervenes, taking the Paivas’ son into a bear hug, with his face against her chest. The boy swings his hand up towards Daugherty’s face several times, appearing to strike her. After about 15 seconds, Daugherty places the boy on the ground, as the specialist and Virgo’s executive director, Rachel Greer, stand nearby; Greer later crouches next to the boy.
While Daugherty restrains the boy on his back, he attempts to kick at her; one kick appears to connect with Daugherty’s chest and head. Daugherty then grabs the boy’s leg and pushes it into his stomach and chest. This more aggressive restraint lasts just shy of 15 seconds. After that, Daugherty stands up and moves away. The boy lies on the ground for around 30 seconds, then the behavioral specialist picks him up and walks, alongside Daugherty and Greer, out of view of the camera.
While the Paiva family and NHCSO agree on the basic sequence of events captured on the video from DC Virgo, the Paivas disagree strongly that Daugherty’s actions were appropriate. NHCSO, meanwhile, defended her.
NHCSO spokesman Lt. Jerry Brewer said that when the Paivas’ son swung his jacket, “that’s an assault.” He said the incident had been reviewed, that an investigation had been conducted, and that Daugherty had been cleared. In a recorded phone conversation, Daughetry’s supervisor, NHCSO Sgt. Jay Ross, told Emilie Paiva, "[Daugherty] didn't violate any policies. She was kicked in the face.”
The Paivas told WHQR they had numerous concerns about Daughetry’s behavior, starting with her decision to intervene in the first place. They argued that Virgo’s administration never asked for her to get involved, and that without that request, she should not have put her hands on their son unless there was a legitimate threat — which Emilie Pavia said didn’t include swinging a jacket.
“An officer intervening is not in his behavior plan,” Coleman Paiva said.
“There are also steps that have to be followed to de-escalate,” Emilie Paiva added. ”The hold is the very last thing, for most children with an IEP, that's the last thing. And it's always if there's safety at risk. And I don't think that, you know, a puffy jacket is a safety risk that justifies putting hands on a child. I think they could have de-escalated that situation.”
Emilie Paiva said that the behavioral specialist later told them that if she’d been given a moment, she could have taken the jacket from the boy and de-escalated the situation. Emilie added that, if it had been necessary, the appropriate hold — “a basket hold” — should have been applied from behind.
Emilie and Coleman Paiva both said they were deeply concerned that it looked to them like Daugherty was applying so much force on their son.
“She's pushing all of her weight on our less-than-68-pound child; it looks like she's trying to drive him through the concrete,” she said, adding that their son’s head struck the concrete twice during the incident.
The Paivas say Virgo’s administrators confirmed to them that Daughetry had not been asked to get involved, even given their son’s outburst, which NHCSO said was captured on bodycam. But they haven’t put it in writing, and UNCW declined to answer questions about the situation. Meanwhile, NHCSO claims Daughetry was asked to intervene.
In his phone call with Emilie Paiva, Sgt. Ross accused Greer of lying.
“[Daughetry] was requested by staff to be there. So I don't know what story you were told,” Ross said. “And I actually recently found out there were a lot of lies told by Miss Greer, in that whole situation, that she told to me, that I caught her in.”
Bodycam video
According to NHCSO, there is also an hour of bodycam footage, apparently from Daugherty, which shows the Paivas’ son during a destructive, dysregulated episode. The Paivas said they have requested to see the video, but NHCSO hasn’t responded yet.
Under North Carolina law, bodycam footage and other law enforcement videos are not considered public records. However, those who appear in the videos and their family are allowed to view the recordings under certain circumstances.
Lt. Brewer told WHQR the video showed the boy “just walking through the school, destroying it, ripping things off walls, turning over desks, and they don't stop him. They're just like, ‘oh no, he needs to vent his anger.’ And for an hour, he's just destroying stuff.” Brewer added that the boy was heard making obscene and violent comments. Sgt. Ross told the family that their son was “literally flipping tables onto teachers.” Apparently, Daugherty did not get physically involved during this episode.
The Paivas said they didn’t believe NHCSO’s account, saying that their son might have been able to lift one side of a table but not flip or throw it. Coleman Paiva said he was told by school staff that the Sheriff’s Office was exaggerating the situation.
“Again, we’ve asked to be shown this because the school said it wasn’t as bad as the Sheriff’s [Office] describes. And even if it was — it does not justify her actions at all. There is no situation in which her actions were justified,” he said.
Emilie Paiva added that the threat assessment should have been done in the moment. She said that even if their son had been flipping tables, that at the moment Daugherty went hands-on with her son, they were outside, with no dangerous objects available.
“Shouldn't that threat assessment be made in that current location, where you're at, and with what available things that he has to grab a hold of? We understand that [our son] needs consequences, reasonable, age-appropriate, mental-health-appropriate consequences for his behavior. He also needs therapeutic intervention to understand what's happening in his body and what's happening in his brain,” she said.
Aftermath and accountability
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the Paivas were worried their son might have a concussion, but they said thankfully that wasn’t the case. But they are concerned about the traumatic aftereffects of being restrained.
“The biggest thing that we have noticed as a result of this is, where we had made so much progress in school, this has made life at home and at school harder because he doesn't feel safe there right now,” Emilie Paiva said.
They’re also concerned that there were no repercussions for Daugherty, although she was moved off Virgo’s campus about a week after the incident.
After Coleman Paiva posted the Virgo video of the incident on Facebook, several parents with students at New Hanover County Schools contacted WHQR with concerns that Daugherty had been moved to an NHCS campus. Superintendent Dr. Chris Barnes confirmed he had also heard those concerns, but by the time he looked into it, Daugherty had already been moved to a different assignment. NHCSO didn’t offer specifics on her current posting, but did confirm she’s still an SRO — that could in theory be a charter or private school contracting with the Sheriff’s Office for security.
Coleman Paiva said the family has filed a complaint with the sheriff’s office, but after an initial callback, they’ve tried repeatedly to get in touch with someone without success. He said the family is “considering legal options and hoping to connect with other families in the community whose children have also been impacted by SROs.”
Meanwhile, he said their son is starting to bounce back at school, “but the event has definitely impacted his overall mental health and comfort level at school. He is also hyperaware of when the new SRO officers are around.”
