Footage is circulating around the web showing a 6-year-old pleading not to be arrested as officers fasten zip ties around her wrists at a charter school in Orlando.
According to USA Today, Kaia Rolle’s family shared the footage with the Orlando Sentinel and other media outlets on Monday, February 24. USA Today say Kaia was arrested in September for kicking and punching staff members.
In the body cam footage, upon seeing the zip ties, Kaia can be heard asking: “What are those for?”
Officer Dennis Turner then replies: “They’re for you,” with another officer proceeding to tighten them around Kaia’s wrists so she can’t move her hands.
The girl is seen crying and pleading in the distressing video. Officer Turner was reportedly fired shortly after the arrest as he didn’t follow department policy of getting approval of a watch commander to arrest someone under the age of 12.
Kaia can be heard pleading as she cries: “Help me. Help me, please!”
“I don’t want to go in a police car,” she then says, as she’s led towards the officers’ vehicle.
A second officer, who has not yet been identified, tells her: “You don’t want to? … You have to.”
Kaia begs for a second chance, but she’s instead placed in the back of a police car. When Officer Turner returned to the officer to talk to staff at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy, they were rightly dismayed.
Turner proceeded to tell them that the juvenile detention center Kaia was bound for is not like they think. He also said he had made 6,000 arrests, including that of a 7-year-old.
When school administrators stated that Kaia was 6, not 8, Turner said only that she had “broken the record”.
President of the Orlando Fraternal Order of Police Adam Krudo said that the video is the product of a “lapse of judgment on the part of Dennis Turner.”
Turner, meanwhile, is quoted as having said: “I was a police officer for 23 years, and I was in the military before that. All I’ve ever done is to serve my country and my community. That’s all I have to say about this.”
I don’t know about you, but I think this situation could have been handled much better. No 6-year-old deserves to be treated like this!
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