To serve and protect 2.

3. Baltimore Police Arrest, Handcuff 7-Year-Old Boy for Riding Bike http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,259302,00.html
Baltimore Police Arrest, Handcuff 7-Year-Old Boy for Riding Bike on Sidewalk
Saturday , March 17, 2007

[quote]BALTIMORE — Police arrested a 7-year-old boy, handcuffed him and hauled him down to the station house on a charge of riding a motorized dirt bike on a sidewalk.
Then, according to his mother, Gerard Mungo Jr. was handcuffed to a bench and interrogated before being released to his parents.
"They scared me," Gerard told The Baltimore Examiner before breaking down in tears.
Mayor Sheila Dixon apologized Friday for the arrest, and police commissioner Leonard Hamm said it would be investigated internally.
The arrest came after an officer saw Gerard riding his dirt bike on the sidewalk in east Baltimore on Tuesday, police spokesman Matt Jablow said. Hamm, citing the internal probe, declined to discuss how the rest of the incident unfolded.
Kikisa Dinkins said her son was sitting on the bike with the motor off on the sidewalk when an officer grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off.
"I told them to let go of my baby," Dinkins said. "Since when do you pull a 7-year-old child by his neck and drag him?"
Dinkins said she called for a police supervisor to intervene, but the confrontation continued to escalate after the supervisor arrived.
"They started yelling at him, 'Do you know what you did wrong, son?'" Dinkins said. "He was so scared he ran upstairs."
Police arrested Gerard and confiscated the bike.
Dinkins said officers fingerprinted him and took his mug shot. Hamm could not confirm that and said those actions would not have been normal procedure in a non-felony case.
Dinkins said the arrest scarred her son. "This has changed his life," she said. "He'll never be the same."
The Police Department's zero-tolerance arrest policy—begun under former Mayor Martin O'Malley, who is now Maryland's governor—has drawn complaints that such arrests occur most often in poor, black neighborhoods. Gerard is black.
Hamm said the officer had the option of talking with a parent or confiscating the bike. He said that although the city is concerned about nuisance dirt bikes, the arrest "was not consistent with my philosophy of trying to solve problems in the neighborhoods."
The mayor, who appeared Friday with Hamm, said she also planned to look into the case.
"It is clear to me that the arrest was wrong, that the officers on the scene should not have arrested the child, and on behalf of the City of Baltimore I apologize to the boy and his parents," Dixon said.[/quote]


What is wrong with this picture? You know what nothing. Nothing until some people wake up and realise that something is really wrong here. Where do you get off doing this to a seven year old child? I guess you want to get these young black males use to the jail system really early on, and on the least charge. Couldn't you wait till he was at least ten years old. No
come on now, you see some kid sitting outside apparently his own home, on a bike, with the motor off.

You talk to the child, don't come grab him, like he's some criminal. Then continue to ruff him up, and then when your supervisor comes over, who should know better, the same continues. Then while the mother cries cause you are ruffing up her seven year old child, you blatently ignore it, and take the child to jail, where you interigate him, and finger print him, and take his mug shot. Are you out of your minds? Of course not, this is every day behaviour for you, and until these people wake up and stand up, it will continue to be.

Some days I can hardly believe the stories that I am hearing, but why should I not. Until someone(s) stand up, then these sorts of practices will just continue.

Now I wonder if they offered to make him a part of the community snitching programs, as a condition for his release as they do so many other young black males?

This was obhorant behaviour and for so many different reasons. These officers of the law should know better. They should be out getting real criminals, not children sitting on bikes in front of their own homes with the motor off.

To serve and protect?