A viral video of a little boy being taken into custody and put into a patrol car has launched an internal review at the Syracuse Police Department.
The video, now viral on all social media platforms, shows three officers taking the 8-year-old into custody, for allegedly stealing a bag of chips.
Kenneth Jackson recorded the incident after police stopped the boy at a store on the city’s Northside.
“What is y’all doing?” Kenneth Jackson asks an officer holding the little boy by his arms as he cries.
“Guess. Guess what I’m doing,” the officer responds.
Jackson continues to ask officers to explain why they’re taking the boy into custody.
Another officer tells Jackson the boy “was stealing stuff.”
Jackson cuts off the officer and says “Nah man, so he’s stealing a bag of chips you’re treating him like an old cold ******** killer?”
The four-minute and 19-second video becomes increasingly tense from there, with Jackson swearing at officers and calling them names as they put the crying boy into the police car.
Jackson told reporters he saw terror in the child and decided to intervene.
“There’s a way that the police need to interact with kids and what they did that day was completely unacceptable,” he said.
The attention prompted Syracuse police to release a statement Tuesday saying the video contained “misinformation.”
They said the little boy was never placed into handcuffs, and while he was put into the patrol car, he was taken home where officers spoke to the boy’s father. The boy was not charged with a crime. Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said he contacted Chief of Police Kenton Buckner when he learned of the video.
“The officer knew the child from prior interactions,” Mayor Walsh said in a statement, “and explained to him that he was being taken home. The officers returned the child to his family and discussed the incident with his father before leaving without filing any charges. What occurred demonstrates the continuing need for the City to provide support to our children and families and to invest in alternative response options to assist our officers.”
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