Sacramento Community Enraged After Police Place Plastic Bag Over 12-Year-Old’s Head During Arrest

Community members in Sacramento, California are enraged after witnessing police put a plastic bag over a 12-year-old’s boy’s head while arresting him.

Black Lives Matter and other activist groups are calling out the local police for brutally arresting a 12-year-old boy, and placing a plastic bag over his head. Police say the incident occurred on the evening of April 28 at a carnival. The boy was reportedly approached by a security guard, for unconfirmed reasons, when the boy took off running. The security guard in the video at one point said the boy was chased because he was asking people to buy him items in a store. Police eventually were called to the location, and the child was placed in handcuffs.

In the recording, you can see the boy arguing with police before he eventually spits on one of the officers. After pinning him to the ground, officials then put a white plastic bag over his head. The bag the police used is commonly referred to as a “spit bag,” and is used on people who try to spit on police while being detained. Despite the boy beginning to calm down after a tussle, the officers keep the bag on his head. “Look at that, look at that, police brutality,” a man can be heard saying in the 25-minute video. 

Sacramento attorney Mark T. Harris, who is representing the unidentified boy and his family, said the treatment cannot be tolerated.

“We want to make sure that the greater Sacramento community, the state of California and the world is aware of what happened to this young man, who was doing nothing more than trying to enjoy the benefits of a neighborhood carnival,” Harris said in a video.

The child is 4’8 and weighs less than 100 pounds; according to the boy’s mother, and the child “was born with significant upper respiratory complications and according to his mother and grandmother, suffered from breathing difficulties particularly when anxious.” Now,  social justice groups are coming forward to call out the officers’ brutality. “Our police should know how to handle a tiny 12-year-old boy,” Tanya Faison, Sacramento Black Lives Matter founder, told the Bee. Police are now investigating the incident.