A 5-year-old boy who ran away from school was violently threatened and handcuffed by Maryland police…right in front of his mother.
The incident occurred on Jan. 14 after two Montgomery County police officers were called to East Silver Spring Elementary School about a missing child.
Body camera footage, which was finally released on Friday, shows the exact moment police located the boy.
“You feel like you can make your own decisions? Are you an adult? Are you 18? So why are you out of school?” a male officer can be heard saying.” I don’t care if you don’t want to go to school. You do not have that choice, do you understand?”
The video then shows one officer getting physical with the child.Â
“You better stop,” the officer said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I don’t want to go!” the boy yells back.Â
You then hear the second officer, a female, threaten the boy.Â
“Does your mother spank you? … She’s going to spank you today. I’m going to ask her if I can do it.”
A “violent little thing” the officers refer to him as.Â
According to ABC News, upon everyone’s arrival back to school, the boy was handcuffed in front of his mother.
“These are for people who don’t want to listen and don’t know how to act,” the male officer says while placing the boy’s hands behind his back. “Is that how you want to live your life?”
After being left completely traumatized, the child’s family filed a lawsuit against the officers involved and the county and the Montgomery County Board of Education.
The suit describes the officer’s behavior as “malicious, grossly negligent, reckless and in deliberate disregard of the emotional stress it would inflict on the child,” ABC News reported.
ABC also reported that an investigation was conducted in regards to the officer’s behavior, yet the “findings are confidential under Maryland law and both officers remain employed by force.”
“Our heart aches for this student … There is no excuse for adults to ever speak to or threaten a child in this way,” Montgomery County Public Schools Board President Brenda Wolff and Superintendent Jack Smith said.
