A 10-year-old boy was arrested and taken to jail in Mississippi after going to the bathroom behind his mother's car. An officer is out of a job over the incident, police said.
A police officer is off the job following the arrest of a 10-year-old boy for urinating in public, authorities said. The child was placed in custody and taken to jail after he relieved himself behind his mother's car in Mississippi.
Latonya Eason took to Facebook on Aug. 10, posting a photo of her son sitting in the back of a Senatobia Police Department cruiser.
The mother said she was inside an attorney's office seeking legal advice, when an officer entered and said he'd caught her son peeing behind her car in the parking lot.
Eason said she asked her son, Quantavious, why he did that.
"I was like, 'you knew better, you should have come and asked me if they had a restroom,'" the mother told WHBQ-TV.
The officer said he was going to issue a warning and considered the matter resolved, Eason said.
But then more police arrived, she said.
One of those officers said the child needed to go to jail, Eason said. "I'm just speechless right now. Why would you arrest a 10-year-old kid?" she told local reporters last week.
The boy said he was frightened. "I started crying a little bit," he said. "I didn’t know what was happening."
On Monday, Police Chief Richard Chandler announced that one of the responding officers is “no longer employed” by the department and others at the scene face disciplinary actions.
"We will also have mandatory juvenile training department-wide, just as we do every year," he said.
"We appreciate the public’s patience while we investigated this incident. We deeply value your trust and support, and we are dedicated to continually improving and learning from our mistakes," the chief concluded.
Last week, Chandler issued an initial statement on the arrest, saying mistakes had been made.
"It was an error in judgment for us to transport the child to the police station since the mother was present at that time as a reasonable alternative," the police chief said.
"Mistakes like this are a reminder in this profession as to the continual need for training and refreshers on the various topics that we encounter each day," Chandler said.
The boy's mother said she is contemplating legal action against the department.
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