Two officers with the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland were seen on camera mocking and screaming at a 5-year-old boy, with one officer saying, “I hope your mom let me beat you.”
The video, which was released by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) shows an interaction two officers had with a 5-year-old boy on January 14, 2020, when an East Silver Spring Elementary School employee called requesting “assistance in addressing a five-year-old child who had left the school grounds and did not wish to return.”
In the video, one of the officers can be seen speaking to the boy outside of a police car, asking the child if he thinks he can make his 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,” one of the officers can be heard saying in the video. “I don’t care if you don’t want to go to school. You do not have that choice.”
The video then shows the the boy being placed in the back of a police cruiser and brought back to the East Silver Spring Elementary School. While the boy can be heard crying in the back of the police cruiser, the officer driving can be heard saying, “Don’t nobody want to hear that…you know why? Because you don’t get to do what you want to do.”
As the officers bring the boy back to the school, they can be heard yelling at him and mocking him, and at one point they place handcuffs on the boy.
“This is why people need to beat they kids,” another officer says in the video. “I hope your mom let me beat you.”
“Oh, my God, I’d beat him so bad,” the second officer can be heard saying. “You do not embarrass me like this at school.”
Amid the officers yelling at the boy, he can be heard continuously crying and screaming. The video then shows the boy’s mother speaking with the two officers after he is returned to the school, with the mother explaining her son’s behavioral problems, stating that “he is spoiled.”
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The boy’s mother, whose name is Shanta Grant, according to the New York Post, filed a lawsuit against the two officers involved in the video, which prompted MCPD to conduct an internal investigation.
According to the Washington Post, the lawsuit identifies the two officers as Dionne Holliday and Kevin Christmon.
“A thorough investigation was conducted of the entire event. The internal investigation has concluded. The findings of this internal investigation, as in all internal matters, are confidential under Maryland law. Both officers remain employed by the Montgomery County Department of Police,” MCPD wrote in a release. “Due to pending litigation, the Department has no further comment.”
When contacted, MCPD directed Newsweek to its news release without providing further comment.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Montgomery County School Board President Brenda Wolff and Superintendent Jack Smith wrote: “It was extremely difficult for us to watch the video of the incident involving a 5-year-old student at East Silver Spring Elementary School. Our heart aches for this student. There is no excuse for adults to ever speak to or threaten a child in this way.”
