Savannah,
left,
holds
her
daughter
Chanel,
as she
sits
with her
sister
Telia,
as they
listen
to their
mother
Krystal
Archie
talking
Sept. 23
during
an
interview
with the
Associated
Press in
Chicago.
Archie's
three
children
were
present
when
police,
on two
occasions
11 weeks
apart,
kicked
open her
front
door and
tore
apart
the
cabinets
and
dressers
as they
executed
a search
warrant.
(Photo
by Nam
Y.
Huh/AP) |
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In this
Sept.
26,
2021,
photo
Royal
Smart,
left,
poses
with his
siblings
and
mother
in a
Chicago
park.
Smart
still
has
nightmares
about
being
handcuffed
for
nearly
30
minutes
two
years
ago,
alongside
his
mother
and
other
adults.
Neither
he nor
anyone
else was
arrested
when
police
wielding
a
warrant
came
looking
for
illegal
weapons
and
found
none in
the
family's
home on
Chicago's
South
Side.
From
left are
Royal,
Roy and
Royalty,
and
their
mother,
Domonique
Wilson.
(Teresa
Crawford/AP) |
|
Tiny
wrists
in
cuffs:
How
police
use
force
against
children
By HELEN
WIEFFERING,
COLLEEN
LONG
and
CAMILLE
FASSETT
apnews.com
CHICAGO
- Royal
Smart
remembers
every
detail:
the
feeling
of the
handcuffs
on his
wrists.
The
panic as
he was
led
outside
into the
cold
March
darkness,
arms
raised,
to face
a wall
of
police
officers
pointing
their
guns.
He was 8
years
old.
Neither
he nor
anyone
else at
his
family’s
home on
Chicago’s
South
Side was
arrested
on that
night
two
years
ago, and
police
wielding
a
warrant
to look
for
illegal
weapons
found
none.
But even
now, in
nightmares
and in
waking
moments,
he is
tormented
by
visions
of
officers
bursting
through
houses
and
tearing
rooms
apart,
ordering
people
to lie
down on
the
floor.
“I can’t
go to
sleep,”
he said.
“I keep
thinking
about
the
police
coming.”
Children
like
Royal
were not
the
focus
after
George
Floyd
died at
the
hands of
police
in 2020,
prompting
a raging
debate
on the
disproportionate
use of
force by
law
enforcement,
especially
on
adults
of
color.
Kids are
still an
afterthought
in
reforms
championed
by
lawmakers
and
pushed
by
police
departments.
But in
case
after
case, an
Associated
Press
investigation
has
found
that
children
as young
as 6
have
been
treated
harshly
— even
brutally
— by
officers
of the
law.
They
have
been
handcuffed,
felled
by stun
guns,
taken
down and
pinned
to the
ground
by
officers
often
far
larger
than
they
were.
Departments
nationwide
have few
or no
guardrails
to
prevent
such
incidents.
The AP
analyzed
data on
approximately
3,000
instances
of
police
use of
force
against
children
under 16
over the
past 11
years.
The
data,
provided
to the
AP by
Accountable
Now, a
project
of The
Leadership
Conference
Education
Fund
aiming
to
create a
comprehensive
use-of-force
database,
includes
incidents
from 25
police
departments
in 17
states.
It’s a
small
representation
of the
18,000
overall
police
agencies
nationwide
and the
millions
of daily
encounters
police
have
with the
public.
But the
information
gleaned
is
troubling.
Black
children
made up
more
than 50%
of those
who were
handled
forcibly,
though
they are
only 15%
of the
U.S.
child
population.
They and
other
minority
kids are
often
perceived
by
police
as being
older
than
they
are. The
most
common
types of
force
were
takedowns,
strikes
and
muscling,
followed
by
firearms
pointed
at or
used on
children.
Less
often,
children
faced
other
tactics,
like the
use of
pepper
spray or
police
K-9s.
In
Minneapolis,
officers
pinned
children
with
their
bodyweight
at least
190
times.
In
Indianapolis,
more
than 160
kids
were
handcuffed;
in
Wichita,
Kansas,
police
officers
drew or
used
their
Tasers
on kids
at least
45
times.
Most
children
in the
dataset
are
teenagers,
but the
data
included
dozens
of cases
of
children
ages 10
or
younger
who were
also
subject
to
police
force.
Force is
occasionally
necessary
to
subdue
children,
some of
whom are
accused
of
serious
crimes.
Police
reports
obtained
for a
sample
of
incidents
show
that
some
kids who
were
stunned
or
restrained
were
armed;
others
were
undergoing
mental
health
crises
and were
at risk
of
harming
themselves.
Still
other
reports
showed
police
force
escalating
after
kids
fled
from
police
questioning.
In St.
Petersburg,
Florida,
for
instance,
officers
chased a
Black
boy on
suspicion
of
attempted
car
theft
after he
pulled
the
handle
of a car
door. He
was 13
years
old and
80
pounds
(36
kilograms),
and his
flight
ended
with his
thigh
caught
in a
police
K-9′s
jaw.
The AP
contacted
every
police
department
detailed
in this
story.
Some did
not
respond;
others
said
they
could
not
comment
because
of
pending
litigation.
Those
responding
defended
the
conduct
of their
officers
or noted
changes
to the
departments
after
the
incidents
took
place.
There
are no
laws
that
specifically
prohibit
police
force
against
children.
Some
departments
have
policies
that
govern
how old
a child
must be
to be
handcuffed,
but very
few
mention
age in
their
use-of-force
policies.
While
some
offer
guidance
on how
to
manage
juveniles
accused
of crime
or how
to
handle
people
in
mental
distress,
the AP
could
find no
policy
that
addresses
these
issues
together.
That’s
by
design,
policing
experts
said, in
part so
that
officers
can make
critical
decisions
in the
moment.
But that
means
police
don’t
receive
the
training
they
need to
deal
with
kids.
“Adolescents
are just
so
fundamentally
different
in so
many
respects,
and the
techniques
that
officers
are
accustomed
to using
… it
just
doesn’t
lend
itself
to the
interaction
going
well
with
youth,”
said
Dylan
Jackson,
a
criminologist
at Johns
Hopkins
University,
who is
working
with the
Baltimore
Police
Department
on
juvenile
encounters.
The
trauma
lasts.
Kids
can’t
sleep.
They
withdraw,
act out.
Their
brains
are
still
developing,
and the
encounters
can have
long-term
impact,
psychologists
said.
“I think
that
when
officers
understand
the
basic
core
components
of
development
and
youth
development
— their
social,
emotional,
physical,
psychological
development
— it can
really
help
them
understand
why they
might
need to
take a
different
approach,”
Jackson
said.
Training
offered
by the
National
Association
of
School
Resource
Officers
includes
sessions
on the
adolescent
brain to
help
officers
understand
why kids
react
and
respond
the way
they do,
executive
director
Mo
Canady
said.
But not
every
department
makes
use of
the
training.
Canady
and
other
policing
experts
cautioned
against
blanket
policies
that
would
bar
force
against
younger
children.
“You
can’t
say just
because
a
student
is 12
that
we’re
not
going to
use
force,”
Canady
said.
“Most
12-year-olds
you
wouldn’t.
But you
don’t
know the
circumstances
of
everything.
You
could
have a
12-year-old
who is
bigger,
stronger
and
assaulting
a
teacher,
and you
may very
well
have to
use some
level of
force.”
___
Royal,
the boy
in
Chicago,
was
handcuffed
for
nearly
30
minutes
in the
cold,
alongside
his
mother
and
other
adults
in the
house.
Then a
police
sergeant
released
him, and
an aunt
came to
look
after
the
children.
Royal’s
brother
Roy,
older by
one
year,
stood by
watching,
not
knowing
what to
say or
do.
According
to a
lawsuit
filed by
the
family,
police
didn’t
handcuff
him
because
“officers
simply
ran out
of
handcuffs.”
Roy
thought
his
brother
was
cuffed
first
because
he
looked
“intimidating”:
He was
wearing
a blue
hoodie.
That
spring,
in
another
pocket
of the
South
Side,
Krystal
Archie’s
three
children
were
there
when
police —
on two
occasions
just 11
weeks
apart —
kicked
open her
front
door and
tore
apart
the
cabinets
and
dressers
searching
for drug
suspects.
She’d
never
heard of
the
people
they
were
hunting.
Her
oldest
child,
Savannah,
was 14,
Telia
was 11
and her
youngest,
Jhaimarion,
was 7.
They
were
ordered
to get
down on
the
floor.
Telia
said the
scariest
moment
was
seeing
an
officer
press
his foot
into
Savannah’s
back.
Archie
said her
children
“were
told,
demanded,
to get
down on
the
ground
as if
they
were
criminals.”
“They
were
questioned
as if
they
were
adults,”
she
said.
Now
Savannah’s
hands
shake
when she
sees a
police
car
coming.
“I get
stuck. I
get
scared,”
she
said.
Both
families
have
sued
Chicago
police,
alleging
false
arrest,
wanton
conduct
and
emotional
distress.
Chicago
police
did not
comment
on their
specific
cases
but said
revised
policies
passed
in May
require
extra
planning
for
vulnerable
people
like
children
before
search
warrants
are
served.
But the
attorney
for the
two
families,
Al
Hofeld
Jr.,
said the
incidents
are part
of a
pattern
and
represent
a
specific
brand of
force
that
falls
disproportionately
on poor
families
of
color.
“The
number
of cases
that we
have is
just the
tip of
the
iceberg,”
he said.
About
165
miles
(265
kilometers)
due
south,
in the
rural
hamlet
of
Paris,
Illinois,
15-year-old
Skyler
Davis
was
riding
his bike
near his
house
when he
ran
afoul of
a local
ordinance
that
prohibited
biking
and
skateboarding
in the
business
district
— a law
that was
rarely
enforced,
if ever.
But on
that
day,
according
to
Skyler’s
father,
Aaron
Davis,
police
officers
followed
his
mentally
disabled
son in
their
squad
car and
chased
his bike
up over
a curb
and
across
the
grass.
Officers
pursued
Skyler
into his
house
and
threw
him to
the
floor,
handcuffing
him and
slamming
him
against
a wall,
his
father
said.
Davis
arrived
to see
police
pulling
Skyler —
5 feet
(1.5
meters)
tall and
barely
80
pounds
(36
kilograms),
with a
“pure
look of
terror”
on his
face —
toward
the
squad
car.
“He’s
just a
happy
kid,
riding
his bike
down the
road,”
Davis
said,
“And 30
to 45
seconds
later,
you see
him
basically
pedaling
for his
life.”
Video of
the
pursuit
was
captured
by
surveillance
cameras
outside
the
police
department,
and the
family
has
filed a
federal
lawsuit
against
the
police
officers.
Two
officers
received
written
warnings,
according
to
attorney
Jude
Redwood.
The
Paris
Police
Department
declined
to
comment.
“What
they
done to
him was
brutal,”
Davis
said.
___
Kristin
Henning,
director
of the
Juvenile
Justice
Clinic
at
Georgetown
University’s
law
school,
has
represented
children
accused
of
delinquency
for more
than 20
years
and said
many
encounters
escalate
“from
zero to
100” in
seconds
— often
because
police
interpret
impulsive
adolescent
behavior
as a
threat.
“When
you are
close to
the
kids,
you work
with the
kids
every
day, you
see that
they are
just
kids,
and
they’re
doing
what
every
other
kid
does,”
she
said.
“Talking
back,
being
themselves,
experimenting,
expressing
their
discomfort,
expressing
their
displeasure
about
something
— that’s
what
kids
do.”
Meanwhile,
attorneys
like
Na’Shaun
Neal say
police
who use
force on
minors
often
depend
on the
perception
that
kids
lie.
Against
an
officer’s
word,
Neal
said,
“no one
typically
believes
the
children.”
Neal
represents
two boys
—
identified
as R.R.
and P.S.
in court
papers —
who were
involved
in an
altercation
with
police
on July
4, 2019.
It was a
few
hours
before
midnight
when a
San
Fernando,
California,
police
officer
stopped
to ask
if they
were
lighting
fireworks,
according
to a
complaint
filed in
federal
court.
The boys
had been
walking
through
a park,
accompanied
by an
older
brother
and his
dog.
According
to the
complaint,
the
officers
followed
the
group
and told
them it
was past
curfew;
they
needed
to take
the boys
into
custody.
Police
said the
boys
were
responsible
for the
fracas
that
followed,
and they
charged
them
with
assaulting
an
officer
and
resisting
arrest.
But then
a
cellphone
video,
taken by
R.R.’s
brother
Jonathan
Valdivia,
materialized.
And as
was the
case in
the
death of
Floyd —
who was
blamed
for his
own
death
until a
video
showed
Minneapolis
officer
Derek
Chauvin
pinning
him to
the
ground
with his
knee to
Floyd’s
neck as
Floyd
cried
out for
help —
Valdivia’s
video
told a
very
different
story.
The
video
shows an
officer
forcing
his
14-year-old
brother
to the
ground
and
handcuffing
him
behind
his
back.
His
13-year-old
friend
struggles
next to
him, his
neck and
shoulders
pinned
by the
officer’s
knees
for 20
seconds.
“Get off
of my
neck!
That’s
too
hard!”
the
13-year-old
screams.
A judge
found
the boys
not
guilty
at a
bench
trial.
Neal is
suing
the city
and the
police
officer
on their
behalf.
The city
of San
Fernando
has
denied
that
officers
used
excessive
force,
maintaining
that the
boys
physically
resisted
arrest.
“They
were
very
confrontational
and
aggressive
verbally,”
the
city’s
attorney
Dan
Alderman
said.
“Unfortunately,
the
escalation
occurred
because
of the
conduct
of the
minors,
not
because
of
anything
the
officer
did.”
___
It is
worth
noting
that
R.R. and
P.S. are
Latinos.
Authorities
say
there
are
reasons
why
police
officers
are more
likely
to use
force
against
minorities
than
against
white
children.
A 2014
study
published
by the
American
Psychological
Association
found
that
Black
boys as
young as
10 may
not be
viewed
with the
same
“childhood
innocence”
as their
white
peers
and are
more
likely
to be
perceived
as
guilty
and face
police
violence.
Other
studies
have
found a
similar
bias
against
Black
girls.
Tamika
Harrell’s
13-year-old
daughter
went to
a
skating
rink
with a
friend
in their
mostly
white
town
outside
Akron,
Ohio,
last
summer;
she was
one of
only a
few
Black
teens at
the
crowded,
mostly
white
rink.
After a
fight
broke
out, the
girl —
who was
in the
bathroom
when the
brawl
began —
was
grabbed
by an
officer,
roughly
handcuffed
and
thrown
into the
back of
a police
car.
Harrell
wondered
why her
kid —
the
Black
kid —
was
singled
out.
Before,
they had
a good
relationship
with the
police.
But
that’s
all
changed.
The
incident
is still
raw. Her
daughter
won’t go
out
anymore
and is
having
trouble
concentrating.
The
family
has
filed a
lawsuit;
the
police
chief
there
said he
can’t
comment
on
pending
litigation.
Dr.
Richard
Dudley,
a child
psychiatrist
in New
York,
said
many
officers
have
implicit
bias
that
would
prompt
them to
see
Black
children
as
older,
and
therefore
more
threatening,
than
they
are. For
instance,
police
are more
likely
to think
that a
Black
child’s
phone is
a gun,
he said.
It all
becomes
a
vicious
cycle,
Dudley
said.
Police
react
badly to
these
kids,
and to
the
people
they
know, so
kids
react
badly to
police,
leading
them to
react
badly to
kids.
Minority
children
have
negative
everyday
dealings
with
police
and are
traumatized
by them.
“Whatever
they’ve
seen
police
officers
do in
the
past,”
Dudley
said,
“all of
that is
the
backdrop
for
their
encounter
with a
police
officer.”
So when
that
encounter
occurs,
they may
be
overreactive
and
hypervigilant,
and it
may
appear
that
they’re
not
complying
with
police
commands
when,
really,
they’re
just
very
scared.
The
police
are not
thinking,
“I have
this
panicked,
frightened
kid that
I need
to calm
down,”
Dudley
said.
To
Dudley
and to
Jackson,
the
Johns
Hopkins
criminologist,
de-escalation
training
for
police
isn’t
enough.
It must
include
elements
of
implicit
bias and
of
mental
health,
and it
must be
integrated
into an
officer’s
everyday
work.
Jackson
said
he’s
been
working
very
closely
with
Black
kids in
Baltimore,
and the
first
thing he
hears
often is
that
they
can’t go
talk to
an
officer
unless
that
officer
is in
plainclothes.
“There
is a
visceral
reaction,”
he said.
“And
that’s
trauma.
And some
of these
kids,
even if
they
haven’t
been
stopped
over and
over
again,
it’s
embedded
in the
fabric
of what
America
has been
for a
really
long
time,
and they
know
what
that
uniform
represents
in their
community.”
___
Some of
the
cases
have
prompted
changes.
In the
District
of
Columbia,
for
example,
police
officers
now do
not
handcuff
children
under
13,
except
when the
children
are a
danger
to
themselves
or
others.
The
policy
was
revamped
in 2020
after
incidents
in which
two
children
were
arrested:
When a
10-year-old
was held
in a
suspected
robbery,
authorities
said
that
police
had
correctly
followed
protocol
in
handcuffing
the
child,
but then
a few
weeks
later
police
handcuffed
a
9-year-old
who had
committed
no
crime.
Age-specific
force
policies
are
rare,
according
to Lisa
Thurau,
who
founded
the
group
Strategies
for
Youth to
train
police
departments
to more
safely
interact
with
kids.
She said
at least
20
states
have no
policies
setting
the
minimum
age of
arrest.
Without
explicit
policies,
“the
default
assumption
of an
officer
is,
quite
reasonably,
that
they
should
treat
all
youth
like
adults,”
Thurau
said.
The
Cincinnati
Police
Department
also
changed
its
use-of-force
policy
after an
officer
zapped
an
11-year-old
Black
girl
with a
stun gun
for
shoplifting.
The
department’s
policy
allowed
police
to shock
kids as
young as
7 but
changed
in 2019
to
discourage
the use
of such
weapons
on young
children.
Attorney
Al
Gerhardstein,
who
represented
the girl
and
helped
petition
for
policy
change,
said the
pattern
of force
he found
against
kids of
color in
the city
raised
alarm
bells
for him.
Records
he
obtained
and
shared
with the
AP show
that
Cincinnati
police
used
stun
guns
against
48 kids
age 15
or
younger
from
2013 to
2018.
All but
two of
those
children
were
Black.
But in
most
departments,
there is
little
discussion
around
children
and
policing
and few
options
available
to
parents
aside
from a
lawsuit.
If a
settlement
is
reached,
it’s
often
paid by
the city
instead
of by
the
officers
involved.
In
Aurora,
Colorado,
for
example,
a video
of
police
handcuffing
Black
children
went
viral.
The
video
showed
the
girls,
ages 6,
12, 14
and 17,
face
down in
a
parking
lot. The
youngest
wore a
pink
crown
and
sobbed
for her
mother.
Another
begged
the
police,
“Can I
hug my
sister
next to
me?”
Police
said
they
couldn’t
get
cuffs on
the
youngest
because
her
hands
were too
small.
Their
mother,
Brittney
Gilliam,
was
taking
them to
the nail
salon.
She was
stopped
by
police
because
they
believed
she was
driving
a stolen
car. She
was not;
she had
Colorado
plates
and a
blue
SUV. The
stolen
car had
Montana
plates.
Officials
said the
officers
had made
mistakes,
but they
remained
on duty.
The
officers
did not
face any
criminal
charges,
and
there
have
been no
significant
changes
to their
policies
when it
comes to
children.
The
family
has
since
filed a
lawsuit.
The
family
of
X’Zane
Watts
also
filed a
lawsuit
in
Charleston,
West
Virginia,
after a
2017
incident
that
began
when
police
mistakenly
suspected
the
eighth
grader
of a
burglary.
X’Zane
said he
was
playing
in an
alley
near his
home
with his
2-year-old
cousin
when
three
white
men in
plainclothes
got out
of their
car and
started
running
toward
them
with
weapons
drawn,
shouting
obscenities.
They
chased
him into
his
house
and put
a gun to
his
head,
slamming
him to
the
ground.
His
mother,
Charissa
Watts,
saw it
happen
from the
kitchen.
She
didn’t
know
they
were
police.
Neither
did
X’Zane.
“The
wrong
flinch,
they
could
have
shot
him,”
she
said.
“The
wrong
words
out of
my
mouth,
they
could
have
shot
me.”
In the
years
since,
Charleston
ushered
in a new
mayor
and a
new
police
chief.
They
pointed
to
changes
they
have
made:
banning
some
weapons
and
chokeholds,
requiring
body
cameras
and
offering
more
mental
health
and
de-escalation
training.
“Since I
became
chief of
police,
we have
worked
to
review
policies
and
provide
our
officers
with the
tools
they
need to
keep all
our
residents
and
visitors
safe —
but
together
we can
always
do
more,”
Chief
Tyke
Hunt
said.
The
Watts
family
sued,
charging
that
officers
profiled
X’Zane.
They
reached
a
settlement
in 2019.
The year
after
the
incident
was
difficult,
X’Zane
said.
His
elbow,
injured
in the
altercation,
kept him
from
playing
football;
he was
angry
and
distracted.
The
family
moved
across
town to
escape
the
memories
of that
day.
Today,
X’Zane
is doing
much
better.
He hopes
to join
the U.S.
Air
Force.
And he’s
been
able to
put the
incident
behind
him — to
a point.
“It has
put a
longtime
fear in
me,” he
said.
___
Email
AP’s
Global
Investigations
Team at
investigative@ap.org
or
https://www.ap.org/tips/.
See
other
work at
https://www.apnews.com/hub/ap-investigations.
___
Wieffering
is a Roy
W.
Howard
Investigative
Fellow.
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