Who is taken to a mental institution?
The film centers around 10-year-old intelligent Elijah Butler living in New York. His mother is a hard-working woman who has spent the last several years attending night school – with the eventual goal of becoming a lawyer. Given that she is from a lower class area, she is having a tough time finding employment as a legal secretary. Her fiance, Cee, a photographer and supporter of the family, has a genuine bond with Elijah. Later, Cee is incarcerated after assaulting an officer who began harassing him on a street corner for taking pictures of passing pedestrians. He ends up serving twenty-five to life term for having three consecutive charges. 
Later that night, Elijah and his best friend, Thomas Wilson, find themselves incarcerated at a juvenile correctional facility for playing a prank on a police officers with a laser pointer. When Elijah's mother comes to get him and is told he could not be released, Elijah is taken from her with both trying their best to get to one another. She assaults an officer by stabbing him with a pen and then is taken to a mental institution. The officer she assaulted tried to stop her when she tries to take Elijah out of the facility. Elijah has one visit with his mother who is unaware of her surroundings due to obvious medication given from the facility. Elijah eventually is released from the juvenile facility and put in a foster home.
Elijah's mother