More than 150 outraged parents packed a community meeting this weekend after news that Murfreesboro police showed up at Hobgood Elementary School last Friday to arrest at least five children, ages 6-10 years old. Their crime? They did not stop a fight that happened in their neighborhood. That’s right, the fight did not even take place at the school. It happened in the backyard of a private home after a disagreement over a basketball game. Parents report is was little more than pushing and shoving. Officials learned of the fight from a video that was circulated. From the Daily Journal News:
A video was taken of the incident and officers later obtained arrest warrants for students who did not break up the disturbance, McConnell said in an interview before the Sunday meeting. Information about who took the video and how the police obtained it were not made clear Sunday.
These young children were arrested not for participating in the fight, but for not stopping it. Why didn’t that six-year-old jump in and take action to break up the fight? He was hauled off to juvenile detention, where he had ample time to think about his actions as an innocent bystander. Needless to say, parents and members of the community are outraged:
“I have a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old who were arrested last Friday for a crime they weren’t even at,” a mother stated at the podium.
Zaccahaeus Crawford told News 2 he has five children. Two were arrested at school, and he turned his other child in later.
His children are ages 9, 10 and 11, and they all charged with criminal responsibility for another.
“When I got three kids getting arrested, three babies, two of which at the time were not even there, and are sick, diabetics,” Crawford told News 2.
Community leaders are asking police to drop the charges:
Near the end of the meeting, the Rev. Tolbert Randolph, pastor of Providence Baptist Church, asked why the charges against the children could not be dismissed.
"I'm asking in good faith for you to go to the arresting officers and tell them to drop it," Randolph told city officials.
Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr says he will investigate:
Chief Karl Durr told the community he will be investigating to see if what police did was legal and or necessary.
“We will take a look at this and say how can we do things better? How did we error and what can we do different next time?” Chief Durr said at the meeting
See interviews with the parents, Chief Karl Durr and one of the arresting officers below:
Any way you slice it, these kids did not deserve to be handcuffed in front of their peers, hauled away to juvenile detention without notifying the parents and ultimately headed down the classroom-to-prison pipeline.