PHILADELPHIA -
A 16-year-old charter school student says he was roughed up by police so bad it sent him to the hospital with injuries that could last a lifetime.
We want to warn you some of the details of this story are graphic.
Darrin Manning is still having trouble walking a week later. He suffered a serious injuries to his genitals. He claims his injuries came at the hands of a Philadelphia police officer during a recent arrest.
"I think that was wrong, it was going overboard," Manning said.
Manning, a sophomore at Mathematics, Civics and Charter School, had just got off the subway with a dozen teammates in uniform on their way to play a high school basketball game.
He says the group was confronted by police at Broad Street and Girard Avenue. Exactly why the students were stopped and questioned remains unclear, but Manning says he was put in handcuffs. He then says during a pat down a female officer squeezed his genitals so hard-it ruptured his testicle.
"She patted me down again, and then I felt her reach, and she grabbed my butt. And then she grabbed and squeezed again and pulled down. And that's when I heard something pop, like I felt it pop," Manning said
Hospital records show Manning spent night following his arrest at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where he underwent emergency surgery.
"I'm just grateful that they didn't just kill him," said the boy's, mother, Ikea Coney.
She says her son may have permanent injuries preventing him from fathering children.
"The doctor told me, 'You need to press charges,' and that just alarmed me," Coney said.
Manning is now facing charges of aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
"He don't deserve no felony. He's not a bad child. He's not in the streets," Coney said.
"I believe he was sexually assaulted," said Veronica Joyner, founder of the Mathematics, Civics and Charter School.
Joyner says she was with Manning 10 minutes before the incident. She says this straight-A model student hasn't had a single discipline problem in his three-year history at the school.
"They shouldn't be able to do that to any child. But this is a 16-year-old, and that force that was used in his private area, it's sort of is concerning to me," Coney said.
Police in the 22nd District tell FOX 29 News they are looking into this, and a possible internal investigation but be launched in the next few days.
But police also tell us that during the eight hours the boy was in custody he never complained of or reported any injuries