The Cruelest Form of Excessive Force: When Police Arrest Kids
Just watching a child get arrested can feel traumatizing. That was the reaction many people in New York had when body camera footage of the arrest of a 9-year-old Rochester girl was released last month.
The video below shows police struggling to drag a terrified and hysterical child into a squad car, then pepper spraying her after being handcuffed behind her back. “Please wipe my eyes!” She can be heard begging on the tape, while sitting in the back of the cruiser, with its doors closed.
Warning: This video may contain graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing. Body-worn camera footage may not be suitable for minors. Viewer discretion is advised.
Based on the video, the incident appeared to have started when officers questioned the girl about the domestic violence allegations in her home. The confrontation escalated and turned ugly when the child grew frightened and uncooperative and tried to run back inside her house. Police later said they were responding to a call about a “minor” who was threatening to hurt herself.
In a lawsuit filed against the city, the child’s family alleges she was subject to “infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery, excessive force, false arrest, and unlawful imprisonment.”
Shockingly, children as young as seven years old can be arrested and prosecuted in the state of New York. That is a practice which some criminal justice advocates are now seeking to change. In a letter sent to state officials today, New York City public defenders groups called on the legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo to raise the minimum age to twelve. A bill has been introduced in the state assembly to that effect.
The advocates argued that children of color are disproportionately targeted by juvenile arrests, referencing viral videos showing a Black girl ordered to lie facedown at gunpoint, and officers frisking an 8-year-old boy as handcuffs slid off of his narrow wrists. The state should end arrests and prosecution of elementary school-age children, and instead invest in community-based services and alternatives, the group said.
“In these videos, children are sobbing, asking for help, and being traumatized by police actions,” the public defenders said, adding that kids can easily have their rights violated in these situations. “The violence used against these children, mostly Black and Latino children, is compounded by a lack of police accountability.”
Between 2016 and 2019, 250 children under the age of 12 were arrested in New York City, the overwhelming majority of which were non-white, according to the Legal Aid Society. You would think when dealing with young children that police would refrain from using force, but that is hardly the case. A report released in June 2020 by the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board detailed recent incidents where children as young as eight were ordered to comply with officers’ commands at gunpoint.
The board described a day in March 2018 when a group of Black and Hispanic boys ages 8 to 14, who were talking, laughing, and playing with sticks, were surrounded by police cars. Officers stepped out of their cars, one with a gun drawn, and demanded that the boys get against a wall. Compliant and posing no threat, two of the boys were nonetheless frisked by officers and taken down to a station house in tears.
Later, the officers claimed they were responding to a report of a group of men in their 20s chasing and fighting people while armed with sticks and a machete. None of the boys matched the description of the suspects, however. The officers were also found not to have reasonable suspicion that the boys were armed, and that they lacked authority to take any of the boys to the station.
“They did not assault or menace anyone, no weapons were found, and no bystanders at the scene were alarmed,” the board noted in its report. Parents of the boys filed complaints about their treatment, and said they were not even allowed to call home, nor did the parents receive a call from the NYPD.