A Kentucky county sheriff is facing a federal lawsuit after a viral online video showed him handcuffing a disabled elementary-school student, the Daily Mail reported.

Parents of two children are accusing school resource officer Kevin Sumner of using the technique on the 8-year-old boy, as well as a 9-year-old girl. Since the handcuffs were too large to fit around the kids' wrists, he allegedly put them around their biceps, locking their arms behind them, the newspaper detailed.

Both students have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and are identified in court documents only by their initials, S.R. and L.G., according to WKYT, the Lexington, Kentucky, CBS affiliate. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Children's Law Center and a private law firm, claims Sumner caused both minors pain and trauma.

The suit adds that the boy, who is 3 feet and 6 inches tall and weighs 52 pounds, was removed from class in August because he was not following his teacher's directions. When the student tried to leave the principal's office, he was physically restrained by school administrators until Sumner arrived to escort him to the bathroom, the Daily Mail noted based on filings.

"You don't get to swing at me like that," Sumner is heard telling the boy in the video captured by a school administrator and uploaded to YouTube by the ACLU. "You can do what we've asked you to, or you can suffer the consequences."

ACLU spokesman Matt Coles told NBC's Today show that the technique used was inappropriate and that the mere presence of police officers at the school was questionable.

"We don't think handcuffs at the biceps are the way to treat an 8-year-old child, even if the child is emotionally distraught," Coles said. "Instead of treating things like garden variety discipline, (policemen) treat them like law enforcement problems, and it leads to the kind of inappropriate response that we saw here," he added.