A schoolgirl in New York is suing the police after she was arrested for writing on her desk.
Alexa Gonzalez, 12, was spotted penning a message to her friends in green, erasable marker on her table during a Spanish lesson, BBC News reports.
Gonzalez, who had written "I love my friends Abby and Faith", was "dragged" to the dean's office and the police were called. She was later taken out of Junior High School 190 in Queens in handcuffs and was held at a local school precinct for hours.
Gonzalez and her mother are now pursuing legal action against the police and education departments in New York City for excessive use of force and violation of her rights.
Speaking to the New York Daily News, Gonzalez revealed that she started crying after being put in handcuffs and added: "I made two little doodles... It could be easily erased. To put handcuffs on me is unnecessary."
New York officials have agreed that the arrest was a mistake and admitted that officers should have made a better judgment.
Meanwhile, Gonzalez's family lawyer Joseph Rosenthal claimed that the school's decision to call the police was excessive and added: "We want to stop this from happening to other young children in the future."
Gonzalez was suspended from school and tried in a family court, where she was sentenced to eight hours of community service and ordered to write an essay about what she has learned from the incident.