Mother slams police for detaining 10-year-old son for public urination
I’m just speechless right now. Why would you arrest a 10-year-old kid,’ mother says
An irate mother in Mississippi slammed local police when they detained her 10-year-old son and hauled him off to jail for urinating behind her car.
Latonya Eason was at an attorney’s office in Senatobia for legal advice on 10 August when an officer saw her son Quantavious Eason peeing outside, WHBQ reported.
“I was like, ‘Son, why did you do that?’ He said, ‘Mom, my sister said they don’t have a bathroom there,’” Ms Eason told WHBQ. “I was like, ‘You knew better, you should have come and asked me if they had a restroom.’”
The child was initially going to be let off with a warning, the officer telling Ms Eason: “‘Since you handled it like a mom, then he could just get back in the car.”
But several more officers suddenly arrived on the scene and the boy was detained.
“Another officer came over there and was like, ‘Your son gotta get out of the car. He gotta be arrested because he can’t do that,” Ms Eason said.
A photo Ms Eason posted to her Facebook page shows a solemn Quantavious sitting in the back of a cop car.
He recalled the frightening ordeal to the news outlet.
“I started crying a little bit. They took me down there and got me out of the truck. I didn’t know what was happening,” Quantavious said. “I get scared and start shaking and thinking I’m going to jail.”
Police transported Quantavious to the police station, where he later said he was held in a jail cell. The boy was not handcuffed, police later noted.
Ms Eason admitted that her son urinating in the parking lot “was not right, but at the same time I handled it like a parent and for one officer to tell my baby to get back in the car it was okay and to have the other pull up and take him to jail. Like no.”
“I’m just speechless right now. Why would you arrest a 10-year-old kid,” she added.
Quantavious was charged with “child in need of services” then released to his mother, she said.
But the upset mother said the damage had already been done.
“That could really traumatize my baby. My baby could get to the point where he don’t wanna have an encounter with police – period,” she said.
The police chief issued a statement, stating an officer at the scene did not initially see a parent when the child was caught urinating.
Officers then found the mother inside the nearby attorney’s office. The chief then went on to say that transferring the child to the jail was not necessary.
“Under these circumstances, it was an error in judgement for us to transport the child to the police station since the mother was present at that time as a reasonable alternative,” he said.