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Lakewood, CO, United States (AHN) – Police in Colorado pepper sprayed an 8-year-old second grade boy who was having a temper tantrum.

Reportedly Aidan Elliot, 8, became enraged while at his Lakewood, Colorado elementary school on Feb. 22 and began threatening students and was spitting and throwing chairs.

However police were called to the Glennon Heights Elementary classroom when he broke a piece of wood trim off the wall and held the sharp piece of wood threateningly while brandishing it like a knife.

Teachers at the school barricaded themselves in a room away from the unruly student.

“I wanted to make something sharp if they came out because I was so mad at them,” Aidan Elliot said in a police report. “I was going to try to whack them with it.”

The report goes on to say Aidan, “was holding what looked like a sharpened one foot stick and he screamed, ‘Get away from me you f—ers.’”

Then the report goes on to say that Lakewood Police officers ordered the child “drop the stick,” and when he refused authorities sprayed him with pepper spray twice until he dropped the piece of wood.

He was then handcuffed and later treated on the scene for “a red, irritated face.”

Mandy Elliott, Aidan’s mother believes the police have handled the situation differently. Two other times police were called to the school about her son who has some issues and both times officers were able to talk to her son and calm him down.

“I do want them to get training like other local police departments in our area have for a crisis situation with children,” Mandy said Wednesday on NBC’s Today show. “I don’t think it’s right for an eight-year-old to get pepper sprayed.”

Aidan while on the program told Meredith Vieira that he doesn’t think he would have hurt his teachers and doesn’t know why he acts out. “I don’t know,” Aidan said. “That’s just the way my body goes. I can’t really control it for some reason.”

Lakewood Police spokesman Steve Davis defended the officers’ decision to use pepper spray on the boy, calling it the safest option considering the circumstances.

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