I want you to go back to your house.
Are you serious?
They're 12 and 14 years old.
And I’m looking for two kids about this age right now.
So get back in your house.
My name is Keith Neely and I'm an attorney with
the Institute for Justice.
And today we're here in Springdale, Arkansas, to meet
with Cassi and our two sons, Haden, and Weston to discuss a
scary encounter that they had with police in January, 2018.
When Cassi's family was finishing up their dinner
at her parents, her son's 12 and 14 year old Weston and
Haden decided to walk home.
While that was going on Springdale police were
trying to find two men, one taller than the other.
Officer Lamont Marzolf was put on lookout and it
stopped his vehicle on a residential street near
where Cassi's family live.
So with the police officer knows at this point as that
he's looking for two males, one taller than the other who
are running from police and here come Haden and Weston.
True, one is taller than the other, but they're not running
they're walking and they're boys and that's where the
night takes a horrible turn.
Hey, what are you guys doing?
Hey!
Stop!
Stop! Stop!
Turn away.
Turn away from me.
Okay, Cassi, we're we're back where everything
happened that night.
Can you walk us through how things looked from your
perspective when you, when you came onto the scene?
Yes, I was walking out of my front door.
I saw the police lights, and I knew that he was
probably going to stop and ask some questions.
So I just started walking straight over here.
I started approaching the police officer and yelling
behind they were my boys.
The police officer pulled a taser on me then and
told me that he was serious to get back.
And I asked him where he wanted me to go and he told
me to leave, to go home.
And how did that feel having the police officer completely
ignore you, threaten you with a taser and then tell you to
leave your children behind?
Very intense moment as a parent and just not being
able to do anything and not understand what is happening.
Alright, Haden and Weston.
This is the spot where it happened.
You were walking home that night and police
officers stopped you.
Tell me a little bit what was going through your mind?
What was happening?
He, uh, had us turnaround with our hands in the air
and, uh, had us get on the ground on our stomachs.
And then he came in and checked us and cuffed us.
I remember I had my hands cuffed.
I kinda got a little bit panicked.
I was, you know, I started freaking out.
Haden and Weston were apprehended using what's known
as a Terry stop, otherwise called a 'stop and frisk'.
It's a procedure that the Supreme Court first
authorized in the 1960s.
And today it's used thousands of times around
the country, every day.
A case of mistaken identity going horribly wrong.
Turn around.
Let me see your hands.
They had guns pointing at my son.
He was handcuffed for at least four minutes
and was never told why.
Put your hands up.
Four children.
Two of them in handcuffs being detained by police.
I was still in shock when I was in handcuffs.
I'm here at the Institute for Justice's headquarters here in
Arlington, Virginia, to talk to Robert McNamara attorney
on this case to explain more.
So the Supreme Court has said that the police can
stop suspicious individuals and demand that they explain
themselves and even frisk them in what's known as a
Terry stop, which is supposed to be minimally intrusive.
But in reality, a Terry stop is not just a stop and
frisk it has turned into a stop, assault, handcuff,
point a gun at,
all in the name of this minimally intrusive
investigation and that's just worlds beyond
anything the Supreme Court has ever signed off on.
When it was over the officer returns to his
car, closes his door, and says to himself, 'Dumb.'
That sigh is the sound of a police officer realizing
he's just violated someone's Constitutional rights.
After the incident, Cassi sued Officer Marzolf on her
boy's behalf for illegal seizure arrest, search,
and excessive force.
And on her own behalf for excessive force for
threatening to use a taser on her, when she
obviously posed no threat.
This case is about whether government officials can be
held accountable for actions that any reasonable person
would tell you were wrong.
I defy anyone to watch this video and tell me that's good
policing, that's how this interaction should have gone.
But the federal courts have said, it's just not
their business to say that this bad behavior
violates the Constitution.
But if anything violates the Constitution pointing
a gun at two children because you're looking for
two adults has to be it.
I want the Supreme Court to take my case because I
want police officers to be held accountable for the
communities they serve.