ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A police officer’s body camera shows a 6-year-old Florida girl crying and begging officers not to arrest her as one fastens zip ties around her wrists at a charter school.
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The video that Kaia Rolle’s family shared with the Orlando Sentinel and other media outlets Monday shows the girl being arrested in September for kicking and punching staff members at her Orlando charter school.
“What are those for?” Kaia asks about the zip ties in the video.
“They’re for you,” Officer Dennis Turner says before another officer tightens them around her wrists and Kaia begins weeping.
"Please give me a second chance": Video shows a police officer arresting a crying six-year-old at her Orlando school. Kaia Rolle pleaded with the officer as she was restrained with zip ties last September. pic.twitter.com/3RqhcD0jvL
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 25, 2020
Turner was fired shortly after the arrest. Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said at the time that Turner, a reserve officer, didn’t follow department policy of getting the approval of a watch commander to arrest someone younger than 12.
“Help me. Help me, please!” Kaia pleads through tears.
As she is being walked to the vehicle, she cries, “I don’t want to go in a police car.”
The second officer, who has not been identified, responds, “You don’t want to? … You have to.”
“Please, give me a second chance,” Kaia says.
The video shows the officer lifting the sobbing girl into the back seat of the police vehicle and putting a seat belt around her.
A short time later, Turner returns to the office to talk to Lucious & Emma Nixon Academy administrators, who appear dismayed by what they have witnessed in the school office.
The officer tells them that the juvenile detention center where Kaia was headed is “not like you think.” Turner tells the administrators he has made 6,000 arrests, including a 7-year-old.
When school employees tell the officer that Kaia is 6, not 8 like he thought, he replies, “Now she has broken the record.”
Turner had worked in the police agency’s reserve unit, which is mostly made up of retired officers who pick up extra-duty jobs for pay. Because he was a reserve officer, he was not a member of the collective bargaining unit, and the police union didn’t represent him, Shawn Dunlap of the Fraternal Order of Police Orlando Lodge 25, said in an email Tuesday.
School resource officers came under close scrutiny in Florida after former Broward Deputy Scot Peterson failed to engage a shooter at a Parkland high school in 2018. He was charged last year with child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury. That case is ongoing.
The Orlando case drew yet more attention to the role of police in schools.
Jeff Kaye, president of California-based School Safety Operations Inc., said in an email that the officer would not only have been fired in some other states but possibly charged with a crime, such as oppression under color of authority.
School administrators might have been better served by contacting the child’s parents and working with a counselor, rather than calling police, Kaye said.
“As long as everyone is safe, take a deep breath, slow things down, and make good commonsense decisions,” Kaye said. “I can’t think of any reason to ever arrest a 6-year-old child, but I say that based on my training and experience and not that of others.”
Kaye said he’s had several several school districts contact him since the video’s release saying they want to re-examine their school resource officer programs, because they don’t want something similar to happen in their schools.
Officials have said that Turner also arrested a 6-year-old boy at another school on the same day as Kaia’s arrest for misdemeanor battery in an unrelated incident. However, the boy’s arrest was halted by superiors before the child made it through the full arrest process.
State Attorney Aramis Ayala said last September that she was dismissing misdemeanor battery charges against both children.
Sick officers. Abuse of authority. Bullying. Charge them.
Stupid foolish police officers: You obviously don’t know a thing about children and why they misbehave. This little girl is not a criminal,, she is a sweet girl who acted out in class because of a good reason, as only a good parent would know.. children misbehave because of a need in which is not met!
I am not sure what happened prior to the arrest. Imagine if this kid was kicking and biting other kids, would you like to be calling a victim’s parent? I was a parent with such an incident, where there was a need for serious medical information regarding history of hepatitis.
Evil nazi bastard! When I see videos like this it makes me HATE cops! They can’t commit suicide fast enough! And to think that those stupid idiot askanim ripped off so many gullible yidden to raise $50,000.00 for the cop who died in Jersey City?! I don’t respect cops. They are nothing, nobody’s. They are a bunch of lowlife drek who get some sick personal pleasure from causing citizens to squirm in their vehicle while they mercilessly give them a whole slew of tickets.
Florida policemen are not very good at their jobs. Orlando policemen are even worse.
Unfortunately this child got a complete different approach at home. When he grows up and realizes this he will certainly be thankful to this officer. Look around and see what the latest silk gloves handling has brought about.
and no charges against this criminal cop? if they protect him after seeing this video then that makes them less than scum of the earth. how unfortunate.
Chilling! Wherr was the school administration? If the can’t control a 6 year old, what are they doing running a school? Many heads should roll over this one!
there is still no information regarding what really happened before calling the cops. maybe the child caused or tried to cause grievous bodily harm to another child. Kids bite and throw things. If a raging child through your child down a staircase leading to spinal injuries; what would you want? This is just an example of decisions that need to be made. I will wonder but withhold my opinion till all the facts are presented.
I notice the video was provided by a law firm, they are quick to show what they want to but probably will avoid discussing anything that is detrimental to their case.
There are cops who will deliberately follow your car in their patrol car, even if you’ve done nothing wrong, and your license plates are in order. They will intentionally stay a close distance behind, in the hope that you’ll speed up, so they can pull you over. I’ve had that happen to me several times. I’ve spoken to other motorists, who’ve told me similar stores. Folks, this goes on every day in the USA, as these cops have a quota for tickets. There are even times, when they will actually pull motorists over who have not been speeding, and lie, and state that there were speeding, and wrote some phony speed violation on the ticket.
None of us were there and know what happened. I am just guessing based on the comments mentioning that this was a special ed student.
Please reconsider in the event your loved one is violently attacked by a 6 year old that is biting, kicking and throwing hard objects. These things happen daily in some special ed settings and there are rules and protocols to follow when there is behavior that is “dangerous to themselves and other”.
There are rules for restraint when and if necessary..
The cop spoke very nicely and was extremely patient.
A shame he was fired!!!
This kid, although only 6 years old, was very wild and uncontrollable, and the police were called in.
That kid needed to learn her lesson, that she must behave well or suffer the consequences.
I can picture her mother ranting and raving.
Should jail the mother for not raising het child well.
Um, obviously someone from the school called the cops. They couldnt handle her themselves. Could have been just a threat, and scare tactic. In the end, it did scare her, and the cop should have taken off the cuffs after riding in the parking lot of the school.
If it was your wife or daughter working as a teacher being kicked, punched or beaten by a student; you would probably say – why did it take so long for the police to arrest her.
30+ kids in a public class and one of them has gone totally violent puts teachers and administrators in a very difficult situation.
Police officers have a limited amount of solutions based on their training. He did not shoot or tazer the child. The child was restrained and brought to the police station where professionals further up the chain could determine if this was; psychiatric, enviromental (bad home), or criminal.
If this out of control kid put a pencil in your kid’s eye you would see why sometimes it is necessary to be proactive with the resources available.