World

WATCH: Young Boy Pinned by US Police for Trying to Speak to Detained Father

A video posted to Facebook Sunday showing Georgia police pinning a young black boy to the ground demonstrates that family separation isn’t an issue faced only by immigrants in America. Ariel Collins, who says she is the boy’s cousin and posted the video, claims the young man was just trying to talk to his father, who had just been detained.
Sputnik

Collins used an expletive to refer to the police, saying that before she was able to start recording, police slammed her little cousin against their cruiser while he was trying to talk to his father, who was in the police car.

It isn't clear how old the boy is. Police say he is 10; Collins claims he is just 7.

It's difficult to determine from the video what the two police officers and the boy are saying because two women can be heard screaming in the background. Towards the beginning of the footage, the boy squeaks "I'm sorry" to the officers.

He even calls the cops "sir."

The officer who has him pinned offers to let him up to have a conversation. "I don't need you running around like that," he says to the boy. 

"He's a child!" a woman yells, justifying the boy's alleged unruly behavior. The cop who had the boy pinned gets in the women's faces and tells them that the boy "attacked" one of his officers, a charge the women dispute.

In a statement posted some six hours after the Facebook video, the Athens-Clarke County Police Department said they were "reviewing the facts around this incident."

On Monday morning, the department issued a more in-depth response to the video, saying: "the suspect's 10-year-old child became extremely emotionally distraught. On more than one occasion, the other adults on scene attempted to restrain the child without success. As an officer was walking the suspect to his patrol car, the child attempted to block his path and again had to be removed and restrained by the adult family members."

The department goes on to refer to unreleased bodycam footage which will be available to the public after the county attorney completes a review of it. According to police, the video doesn't show the officer "slamming" the boy against the car, as Collins described the incident.

Instead, police say the boy "lunged at one of the officers. Our officer caught the child in mid-air and the momentum of the child launching himself caused the both of them to land on the patrol car."

Discuss