A frightened 11-year-old New York girl broke into tears when upstate deputies placed her in handcuffs for several minutes after mistaking her for a car thief, footage of the mix-up shows.
The girl was walking home from Brighton Academy Middle School in Syracuse with a group of friends on Monday afternoon when two deputies from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office stopped her five blocks from where a group of teens had ditched a stolen Kia, Syracuse.com reported.
The deputies placed the shocked girl in handcuffs for seven minutes, claiming that she was wearing the same pink puffer jacket, camo pants and white sneakers one of the alleged thieves was described as wearing, video taken by the girl’s cousin shows.
The other children repeatedly told the deputies they had the wrong person, but the deputies insisted she was the culprit, even showing them a photo of the suspect, according to the footage.
“Girl, you gonna tell me this ain’t you?” one deputy says to the handcuffed girl.
“It is what it is,” her partner added. “If you’re honest, it will make it easy.”
The girl’s cousin tried to explain that the suspect had lighter skin and longer hair.
When additional deputies pull up at the scene, the 11-year-old starts crying as the gravity of the situation hits her.
Eventually, after nearly seven minutes in handcuffs, the deputies realized that they had the wrong girl, released her and apologized for the confusion.
“I’m sorry about it, but you matched the description pretty clearly,” they told the student, video shows.
The girl’s mother was outraged over what happened to her daughter, who now “no longer wants to walk to and from school anymore.”
“That was the only freedom she had, and it’s now gone,” the mother, who wished to remain anonymous, told WSAZ.
“I can’t make sense of it. I couldn’t even finish watching the video. Even if it wasn’t my child, I wouldn’t be able to finish watching the video because that’s not how you handle children,” the horrified mom said.
The stolen Kia led police on a seven-minute pursuit before four occupants stopped the car and fled on foot, the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The driver, a 14-year-old boy, was arrested after a foot chase. Two other boys, 13 and 17 years old, were also arrested — but the suspect in the pink coat has not been found, the sheriff’s office said.
The Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday defended its decision to detain the young girl, which it said was “lawful and reasonable, given the juvenile’s proximity and clothing description.”
Detainees are typically handcuffed so deputies can take control of the situation and in case suspects attempt to flee or decide to fight, Newton explained.
Sheriff Tobias Shelley had met with her mother, who had “concerns about why the police didn’t inform her that her daughter was detained as part of a criminal investigation.”
“The Sheriff agrees that moving forward, it will be OCSO policy to notify a parent or guardian of any juvenile who is detained for criminal investigative purposes, no matter how brief the encounter is,” Newton said.
