Newly released body camera footage
shows Montgomery county Maryland
police officers berating and
handcuffing, a very very dangerous
person, a five year old who had run
away from school.
So the video is 51 minutes long,
obviously, we can't show
you the entirety of the video.
But we can show you is exactly how
certain children even as young as
five are treated in this country by
police.
Take a look.
I got you, listen to me.
How old are you?
>> Five.
>> Five, you feel like you can make
your own decisions.
You feel like you can do
what you want.
Are you an adult?
Are you 18?
So why are you outside of school?
Look at me.
Why are you out of school?
Stuff like that before I
got home Nobody want to hear that,
get out of the car now.
>> I can't understand,
why I can't just go?
>> Because you're making your
situation that much worse for you.
When you get home your
mom's going to
have something to say to you, okay?
I'm going to talk to your
parents, too.
You know why?
Because you bad.
>> Later in the video,
the mother is told that she needs
to discipline her children by using
physical methods of disciplining
them, hitting them.
The mother is suing the police
department, which I think she
absolutely 100% should do.
Again, we're talking about a five
year old child here who ran
away from school.
I remember being five first day
of kindergarten, I remember being
terrified, I remember crying.
I remember trying to run away, but
not being able to.
The idea of treating a child like
that because they ran away from
school at the age of five, it goes
beyond just saying it's ridiculous.
I mean, this is what policing
children has turned into,
like children shouldn't be policed
like this clearly.
And Jake before I go to you,
I just want to go to one more video
because this is
what really hit me to my core.
Okay, the kind of messaging that
these kids are dealing with living
with and
growing with and how damaging that
is to their futures.
Take a look.
[NOISE] I'm going to do,
I am going to have to >> No,
what, sit down, sit down!
[NOISE] When you get older when you
want to make your own decisions you
don't show me what's going to be
your best friend.
These right here,
you know what these are?
These are handcuffs.
You know what these are?
You know what these are for?
These are for people
that don't want to listen and
don't know how to act.
>> Do you want to go with uncle
Burt with that?
>> That's what that is.
Yeah, putting handcuffs on him and
telling this five year old that
handcuffs will be his best friend,
yeah.
So go ahead, Jake.
>> So there's two issues here,
one is we over police, everything
when all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like nails.
And so when all you have is
a handcuffs, even five year olds
look like potential criminals.
So I've got two kids,
they were five years old and for
those of you who don't have kids,
it might be hard to tell like,
yeah, I kind of hazy on.
What did I do when I was three?
What did I do when I was five,
when I was eight,
what's the difference?
No five year olds,
there's no way they know what
the hell's going on, okay?
To traumatize that kid like that
just makes no sense, no sense at
all my eight year old would
be devastated by a fraction of that
let alone a, five year old, right?
So they're not even coming close to
accomplishing their mission even if
their mission made any sense right
of scaring the kids straight.
So the second issue is
a cultural one.
In this case, it's not racial,
it's an older generation and
it's a little bit more Southern.
It's not exclusively Southern, but
there's a culture among both whites
and blacks in this country.
And like I said, especially in the
South where they think you know,
corporal punishment is the way
you're supposed to do things.
That you're supposed to physically
beat up your kids.
You remember Adrian Peterson,
the legendary runningback got in
trouble for
beating his kid with a switch?
Would tear a piece of his skin off,
okay?
And so that's
what these cops are doing.
They're just doing what they were
taught, right?
And what happened to them,
don't get me wrong,
it doesn't make it 1%, right?
In fact, what I want to explain to
folks is, for God's sake just
because it happened to you or used
to happen, doesn't make it right.
You have to think through,
was that a good rule or a bad rule?
Did that make sense or
did it not make sense?
Beating five-year-olds never made
any sense.
So saying,
I wouldn't got beat nine times.
I'm sure that's true and
how'd that work out?
Right? So and
were you happy about it?
Did that give you, like,
psychological comfort?
No, of course it's
a disastrous idea.
But unfortunately, a lot of people
get stuck in old ways.
Like if it's an old rule,
it must be tradition and
it must be good.
No, most of the old rules suck and
so stop- >> Yeah.
>> Traumatizing these kids.
And I want to say one more thing
that's important that the mom,
they said to her, hey,
why don't you beat him, right?
And she said, if I did,
I'd get arrested,
she's actually right.
Like maybe the cops wouldn't get
arrested because
they're cops, right?
But if they
caught her beating her kids,
she'd be in a world of trouble.
And that goes back to over
policing.
We just arrest everybody,
we arrest you.
If you're a five year old,
we arrest you, if you're the five
year olds mom who beat the five
year old like we told you to beat.
So it just there's no winning,
there's no winning.
So, obviously this is not how
a society that is open to change
and developing and
being humane should operate.
>> Yeah, and
I want to read you the exact quote
from the cop who told the mother to
beat her five year old son because
this is what she said.
My god, I'd beat him so bad.
She said loud enough for
the child to hear before speaking
to him directly,
you do not embarrass me like this
at school.
So and by the way, they continued
as the mother was there,
they continued criticizing her
parenting techniques.
Because apparently if you're not
beating your five year old son,
you are not parenting correctly
according to these cops.
We're lucky that
at least cops aren't doing
like parent training sessions.
Our society might actually be more
violent than it already is.
>> I can't believe people do it.
I got kids, the idea of hitting
them is just unimaginable, we used
to be so brutal to one another and
to our own kids.
You don't have to do what
was done to you.
Did you enjoy it?
Did it make you a better person?
None of that is true.
For God's sake have the courage to
rethink dumb old rules.