Montgomery County Police Department via AP
- The events of January 14, 2020, are detailed in the body cam video released on Friday.
- Officers berating, handcuffing, and threatening to beat the 5-year-old during the 50-minute clip.
- The cops involved in the incident remain employed despite calls for them to be fired.
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A body cam video that shows Maryland police officers berating, handcuffing, and threatening to beat a 5-year-old boy has caused widespread outrage and calls for the cops involved to be fired.
In the disturbing 50-minute clip released by the Montgomery County Police Department on Friday, the events of January 14, 2020, are detailed.
Officers had responded to a call from East Silver Spring Elementary School regarding an unidentified five-year-old "who had left the school grounds and did not wish to return," according to Sky News.
The student was picked up a block away. One of the officers, later identified as Kevin Christmon, is immediately aggressive towards him, making him cry audibly as he is forced into the police car.
Another officer joins them in the vehicle and the two loudly berate the five-year-old calling him a "little beast" and telling him, "I hope your momma let me beat you" during the journey back to the school.
While they are in an office in the elementary school waiting for the boy's mother, one of the cops puts her face up to his and screams at him five times as he cries, saying, "Oh, my God, I'd beat him so bad."
Later, Christmon takes out a pair of handcuffs and asks the child in front of his mother: "When you get older, when you want to make your own decisions, you know what's going to be your best friend?"
He points to the handcuffs and adds: "Do you know what these are for? These are for people who don't want to listen and don't know how to act," before handcuffing him with his hands behind his back.
The five-year-old boy's mother filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County, Montgomery County Public Schools, and the Montgomery County Police Department earlier this year, seeking justice and compensation for her son's trauma, NBC Washington reported.
The Montgomery County Police Department said that an internal investigation had concluded but its findings remain confidential under Maryland law, ABC News noted.
However, both Christmon and another officer, identified as Dionne Holliday, are still employed by the department, ABC News added.
Almost 500 people have signed an open letter calling for them to be fired and for the school system, accused of negligence, to review procedures for when the police interact with children in schools.
Maryland Councilmember Will Jawando tweeted a statement Friday which read: "I watched in horror at what can only be a described as a nightmare unfolded for nearly an hour. It made me sick.
It continued: "We all saw a little boy mocked, degraded, put in the back of a police car, screamed at from the top of an adult police officer's lungs, inches from his face. This is violence."