Footage of 6-Year-Old's Arrest: 'Please, Give Me 2nd Chance'

Florida police officer fired after restraining, arresting Kaia Rolle after a tantrum
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 26, 2020 11:00 AM CST
Footage of 6-Year-Old's Arrest: 'Please, Give Me 2nd Chance'
In this image taken from Sept. 19, 2019, Orlando Police Department bodycam footage, Orlando police officer Dennis Turner leads 6-year-old Kaia Rolle away after her arrest for kicking and punching staff members at the Lucious & Emma Nixon Academy charter school in Orlando, Fla.   (Orlando Police Department/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

A police officer's bodycam shows a 6-year-old Florida girl crying and begging officers not to arrest her as zip ties are fastened around her wrists at a charter school. The video Kaia Rolle's family shared with the Orlando Sentinel and other outlets Monday shows the girl being arrested in September for kicking and punching staff at her Orlando school. "What are those for?" Kaia asks in the video about the zip ties. "They're for you," Officer Dennis Turner says before another cop tightens them on her wrists and Kaia begins weeping. As Kaia is being walked to the police vehicle, she cries, "I don't want to go in a police car. ... Please, give me a second chance." The video shows Turner lifting the sobbing girl into the back seat. A short time later, Turner returns to the office to talk to Lucious & Emma Nixon Academy administrators, who seem dismayed by what they've witnessed.

The officer tells them he's made 6,000 arrests, including a 7-year-old. When the employees tell him Kaia is 6, not 8 like he thought, he says, "Now she has broken the record." Turner was fired shortly after the arrest. Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said Turner, a reserve officer, didn't follow department policy of getting a watch commander's OK to arrest a child younger than 12. Jeff Kaye, president of School Safety Operations Inc., tells the AP school administrators may have been better served by contacting the child's parents and working with a counselor rather than calling cops. Officials say Turner also arrested a 6-year-old boy at another school the same day as Kaia's arrest, though that child's arrest was halted by superiors.

(More police officers stories.)

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