Video emerges of Key West police trying to handcuff an 8-year-old boy
A video emerged Monday from a 2018 incident showing police officers in Key West trying to handcuff a crying 8-year-old boy after an incident at his elementary school.
According to the arrest report from the Dec. 14, 2018, case, police were called to his school, Gerald Adams Elementary, after he punched a teacher in the chest. Officers arrested the child, who was not named in the report because of his age, on a felony battery charge.
The Monroe County State Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case in October 2019.
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The video was posted on the Twitter account of Tallahassee civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.
Crump, who is representing the family of George Floyd, the unarmed Black man killed after a Minnesota police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes on May 25, announced Monday night that he and Pennsylvania lawyer Devon Jacobs have been retained by the boy’s mother and will file a federal lawsuit against the Key West Police Department and the Monroe County School District this week.
“This is a heartbreaking example of how our educational and policing systems train children to be criminals by treating them like criminals,” Crump said in a statement. “If convicted, the child in this case would have been a convicted felon at eight years old. This little boy was failed by everyone who played a part in this horrific incident.”
Key West Police Chief Sean T. Brandenburg said in a statement Monday that his officers did not do anything wrong.
“Based on the report, standard operating procedures were followed,” he said.
The Monroe County School District issued a statement Monday that it will not comment on the case because of the possible legal action.
“The District is not, and has not, been involved in litigation about this incident,” the emailed statement reads. “Due to the possibility of this matter becoming a legal issue in the future, we have been advised not to make further comment about the incident at this time.”
The footage shows two Key West police officers talking to the boy, who is sobbing, telling him he’s “going to jail.”
Another officer, who is not shown, is also talking to the boy. The video came from his body camera.
One officer places the boy against a filing cabinet and frisks him before taking out his metal handcuffs. As he puts the cuffs on him, the other officer shown on the video says something about the cuffs not fitting. The officer not seen says, “I don’t think so, either.”
The other officer then says, “Then you can justify [unintelligible],” as he looks into the body camera appearing to disagree with his colleagues about cuffing the boy.
The officer trying to cuff the boy is unsuccessful, so he tells him to keep his hands in front to him as they walk him outside the school.
Before leaving the building, the officer who tried cuffing the boy, says: “You understand this is very serious, OK? I hate that you had to put me into this position to do this. The thing about it is, you made a mistake. Now it’s time for you to learn about it and to grow from it, not repeat the same mistake again.”
Officers then booked the boy at the juvenile justice facility in Key West.
According to the arrest report, the boy’s teacher said the boy was not sitting properly in his cafeteria bench seat. The teacher asked him several times to sit down out of concerns for his safety.
After not complying, the teacher asked him to sit next to her. He refused and told her, “Don’t put your hands on me.”
She then told the boy to walk with her. As he did, he told her, “My mom is going to beat your a--,” and then he punched her with his right hand, according to the report.
Officer Michael Malgrat wrote in his report that he was in the school’s administrative office when the teacher and the boy arrived. Malgrat wrote in his report that the boy “had his hands clenched into fists and he was postured as if he was ready to fight.”
