Mother of B.C. boy who was handcuffed says children’s hospital should have been safe space

The mother of a 12-year-old Indigenous boy who was handcuffed by police at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver says it should have been a safe place for her son, who has autism, but he was pinned to the floor and treated like an adult.

Mia Brown says she needed help with her son at a SkyTrain station Thursday because he was “pushing,” and two officers with Metro Vancouver Transit Police brought him to the hospital for assessment under B.C.’s Mental Health Act.

She says her son has been taken to the hospital before and he became upset because the room they had waited in previously wasn’t free.

Brown says officers pinned her son to the floor and handcuffed him at “the first sound of his whining,” without first asking him to calm down.

She says she started recording a video, which she posted to social media, when one of the officers put his knee on her son’s back.