A Chicago family is demanding justice after their 10-year-old son was handcuffed and nearly arrested by Chicago law enforcement in what many, including his loved ones, claim to have been a case of “mistaken identity” for a juvenile runaway with a gun.
A video surfaced this week of what appeared to be a frightened 10-year-old boy in tears while being handcuffed in the presence of white Chicago police officers. Family members and other civilians chastised the officers while asking why they were arresting him in the first place.
At the scene, one of the officers revealed to one of the family members that “the boy started to run when authorities arrived on the scene.”
“That’s why he’s handcuffs,” the officer says in the video.
When onlookers continue to confront authorities, they proceeded to release the terrified child, who wet his pants out of fear.
“I want answers,” Starr Ramsey, the boy’s mother demands to NBC Chicago. “You can look at him and tell he no teenager [sic]. Ten years old you get handcuffed? You scarred him for life.”
CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson tells The Chicago Sun-Times that his officers “followed all of the rules and protocols” when confronting the boy,
“The call came out as a young man 10 to 12 years old that was passing out a gun and the description fully matched the individual that they stopped,” Johnson said.
“Keep in mind, this is difficult for an officer to tell right off the bat if you’re 10-years-old, 12-years-old [or] 14...So, they handcuffed the kid for safety reasons because he did match that description. They followed all the rules and protocols that we have in place. So, I’m not concerned about that all.”
