On Jan. 14, 2020, a 5-year-old child left East Silver Spring Elementary School in Maryland and wandered away about 1,000 feet from the school into a residential area. He was discovered wandering and brought back to his elementary school by police officers. His mother was called and while he waited for her to arrive, he was berated by Montgomery County Police officers Dionne Holliday and Kevin Christmon. Video of their almost hour-long interaction with the child and then with the child and his mother filmed on one of the officers’ body cameras ended up going viral.
In that video the police officers repeatedly tell the child they believe he should be beaten. Saying things like, “Does your mama spank you? She’s going to spank you today,” the officers later on tell him they have told his mother to beat him. They put handcuffs on him at one point as a lesson of some sort. The child’s mother, Shanta Grant, filed a lawsuit against the police department and the school at the time. Her lawyer told reporters, “You don’t have to be a social worker or licensed counselor to know how to approach a child like this.”
Grant and Montgomery County reached a settlement earlier this month. The settlement reportedly pays the child’s family $275,000. Reportedly $220,00 was “paid on behalf” of the two officers, and $55,000 was paid on behalf of the Maryland board of education.
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Matthew Bennett, one of the attorneys representing the Grant family, told news outlets that the settlement means a lot to the family. “This is life changing money. It will go into a trust account and it will earn interest. When the youngster is ready to go to college, he’ll have a large chunk of change to pay for his college.” The settlement comes after a year-long investigation into the incident seemed to have led to very little in the way of punishment for the two officers.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich released a statement about the settlement saying:
"We are pleased to see that the parties involved in this case reached a settlement; I had been pushing for this for quite some time. This incident has been thoroughly reviewed, including as part of the external audit conducted by Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELE4A), and has led to changes in officer training, incident reporting processes, and clarification of how officers should interact with students in our schools."
It is a good thing that the family has been acknowledged and compensated to some degree for the abuse of power visited on them. However, it seems pretty clear that the two officers in the video have not been held accountable in any meaningful way. You need more than “training” as a police officer if you don’t already know not to abuse and bully a 5-year-old.
The settlement money comes out of the county’s “insurance” fund. That fund comes out of citizen’s pockets. We need less law enforcement, better paid teachers, and support systems for our schools and for our communities in general.
Warning: The video is stressful and could be triggering to some.
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