An 8-year-old girl was handcuffed in Illinois on Tuesday, March 5, for throwing a tantrum. The 8-year-old spent two hours in jail, while police allegedly ignored the girl's pleas to use the bathroom.

The 8-year-old girl, Jymha Rickman, had a bad tantrum at Love Joy Elementary School on Tuesday morning. School officials couldn't handle the girl, so they called the town police.

Instead of helping to calm the girl down, police decided that the 8-year-old should be handcuffed for her tantrum, put in the back of a police cruiser and taken to jail.

While the 8-year-old was being transported to the jail with her hands cuffed behind her back, the girl reportedly asked police if she could get her coat. Her requests were ignored, as were her requests to use the bathroom.

The girl's guardian told KMOV that the police treated the child like a criminal.

8-year-old Rickman's guardian said, "Her eyes were swollen from her crying and her wrists had welts on them. They cuffed her feet too and she asked to use the restroom several times and was ignored."

Police claim that they were called to the school after the girl wrecked two classrooms, and school officials couldn't stop her.

The police do agree that the girl was handcuffed, but say that she was supervised while being held in a juvenile detention room.

School officials and the police stand by the decision to place the 8-year-old child in handcuffs, although the school admitted that such situations have been rare in the past.

"As a last resort we sometimes have to involve law enforcement. They take the student into protective custody when the parent refuses to pick up the child," explained Assistant Superintendent Kristi Baumgartner.

Rickman's uncle, Nehemiah Keeton, said he had told school officials on Tuesday that he was coming to pick the 8-year-old up after she threw the tantrum, but that the school must have gotten impatient and involved the police.

"I feel like if you can't handle an 8-year-old without calling the police, to put fear in them like my child, you don't need to work with kids," Keeton told KMOV.

According to KMOV, Rickman's family said that the girl has dealt with anxiety problems, including separation anxiety, in the past, and that now the young girl is too scared and traumatized by her experience to return to school.