A shocking video from an incident two years ago shows an 8-year-old boy with special needs being handcuffed by police officers at Gerald Adams Elementary in Florida.
According to the arrest report, the young boy had punched a teacher and was then arrested on a felony battery charge.
The December 14, 2018 incident has sparked outrage after Tallahassee attorney Ben Crump, who represents the families of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, shared the bodycam footage of the arrest.
“Unbelievable!! @KWPOLICE used “scared straight” tactics on 8yo boy with special needs. He’s 3.5 ft tall and 64lbs, but they thought it was appropriate to handcuff and transport him to an adult prison for processing!! He was so small the cuffs fell off his wrists!” attorney Crump wrote on Twitter.
One police officer can be heard saying: “You’re going to jail. So you need to stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
The crying boy complies with the officers and whimpers as he walks out of the building. A teacher can be seen comforting the child before he is taken out of the school.
An officer tells the boy: “You understand this is very serious okay and I hate that you put me in this position and I have to do this. The thing about it is that you made a mistake and you have to learn from it and grow from it and not repeat the same mistake again.”
The child was booked into a juvenile justice facility in Key West.
KWP Chief Sean T. Brandenburg said in a statement that his officers didn’t do anything wrong. “Based on the report, standard operating procedures were followed.”
A spokesperson for Key West Police, Alyson Crean, said she didn’t know the video was shared online.
Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro also shared the footage, writing: “Police in Key West tried to put an 8-year-old boy in handcuffs and transport him to jail to “scare him straight.” Police should have no role in punishing our kids or pulling traumatic stunts like this in our schools.”
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