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Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29

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Parents complain about handcuffing of elementary students

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) – Angry parents are demanding action after they say at least five students were handcuffed at a Middle Tennessee elementary school for not stopping an off-campus fight.

The complaints were aired Sunday at First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, where The Daily News Journal (http://on.dnj.com/1SplyEc) reports more than 150 people gathered for a community meeting over Friday’s incident at Hobgood Elementary School. The Rev. James McCarroll said the students were detained and later released from a juvenile center.

Zacchaeus Crawford, who said three of his children were handcuffed at the school, called the actions “nonsense in the fullest definition.”

“There are innocent kids that have been arrested that have been entered in a system they have no business in,” Crawford said.

Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr and City Manager Rob Lyons attended the meeting.