MOHAWK CHILD ALLEGEDLY PLACED IN BOX BY PUBLIC SCHOOL UNLEASHES TRIBE’S OUTRAGE
THE SPEECHLESS, AUTISTIC CHILD WAS PLACED IN A PADDED, WOODEN BOX BY SCHOOL OFFICIALS ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK, HIS GRANDMOTHER SAYS. TRIBE DEMANDS RESIGNATION OF SCHOOL OFFICIALS
Chrissy Jacobs
AKWESESNE, NEW YORK Dec. 18, 2025 Updated: 7:22 PM
An eight-year-old autistic and speechless Mohawk child was placed in a padded, wooden box in a public school on Indian land, his grandmother charged during an emotional school board meeting in upstate New York Wednesday night.
"I'm here to speak for my grandson. Who was put in that box. Who the box was made for," Minnie Garrow said. "He is a special needs child. He's autistic. He's non-verbal. He's an eight-year-old boy."
The incendiary scandal started Tuesday when Chrissy Jacobs published two photographs of the box on Facebook.
"This 'box' was built for special needs students. This is sick!," Jacobs said in a message posted with the photographs. "It reminds me of when our people were locked in boxes at residential school."
Garrow, Jacobs and the boy are members of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. They live on a reservation that straddles the border of the United States and Canada across the St. Lawrence valley on the north side of the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York.
The Salmon River Central School District operates the school where the boy was allegedly abused. The St. Regis Mohawk School serves students pre-K through grade five, according to the District's website. The school is located in the Akwesasne reservation. It serves about 350 Mohawk children.
In response to the firestorm unleashed by the photographs, the District held the public meeting where Garrow detailed the abuse she says her grandson suffered at the school.
She said the child had been at the school for four years, since pre-K, and "he's never treated anyone in a harmful way. He has never hurt another child. There's no notices that have come from the school saying that he has ever hurt anyone, ever.”
"I just learned about this the same way everyone else did," Garrow disclosed. "Through a picture on Facebook."
She said the boy's parents "just found out the same way we all did. Through a picture on Facebook."
"Then he goes to school and he's corralled, like an animal, and put into a box," she charged.
The school district denied placing the boy in the box.
"At no time was the item depicted in the photographs used by any student at the Mohawk school," a statement posted on the District’s Facebook page said. "In fact, prior to the circulation of these photographs, the District had already determined that it would not utilize the specific device shown."
Garrow accused the school of lying.
"The box WAS USED!," she said in a comment on the school's post. "These things happened at RIKERS ISLAND a long time ago and SRCS copied that plan."
Garrow demanded school officials be held accountable: "Any administrator or teacher at SRCS who had knowledge, including the Board of Education should be marched off our Territory NOW!!"
Garrow again said her grandson was placed in the box during the school board meeting.
"And he cannot tell us," she said. "But we do have suspicions that they did put him in that box."
School officials, she said, "blamed it on him. They said he was difficult. That they had a hard time with him. But yet there's none of that behavior at home."
The family knew something was wrong since "his attitude had changed completely this year,” she said. “And it wasn't at home. Because we all continued to care for him and love him as we have."
She said the pain of even suspecting her grandson was placed in the box was particularly hurtful because "I had given my whole life, my heart and soul, to educating our own children and I came to see that my own grandson was being treated like an animal."
"My heart is broken," Garrow added. Addressing the school board, she said "You have traumatized the entire community."
Garrow concluded by demanding school officials be held accountable.
"Everyone in a position of authority has to be held accountable," she said. "The principal. The special ed teacher who put that box in her room and used it."
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council backed Garrow's demand.
"We strongly urge you to immediately and expeditiously issue a formal declaration of a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the superintendent, Dr. Stanley Harper over the recent, horrific events," the Tribe said in a letter to the District’s board of education on Wednesday.
“Trust has been broken with the community,” the tribe's statement concluded, “and to that end we are requesting the immediate termination of Superintendent, Dr. Harper."
Late Thursday afternoon, the school district’s board of education said in a news release it suspended “St. Regis Mohawk School Principal Alison Benedict and elementary school teacher Karrie Haverstock …. until further notice. “ The board also said it “reassigned Superintendent of Schools Dr. Stanley Harper to home duties pending the full investigation. “
“The board has now launched an independent investigation to be conducted by a law firm beginning today, Thursday, Dec. 18, to objectively review the circumstances,” the news release revealed. “The board is also cooperating with a New York State Department of Education (NYSED) investigation.”
“The Board of Education extends its sincere apology to our students, families, and community members who have been deeply affected by the ongoing situation. We recognize the pain, concern, and distress these events have caused, and we are truly sorry for the harm and trauma this has resulted for our community,” Board President Jason Brockway said.
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