A sheriff’s office in New York is defending a pair of deputies who detained and handcuffed an 11-year-old girl, arguing their actions were “reasonable” because the child matched the description of a suspect.
The encounter unfolded Monday as deputies with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office in Syracuse were on the hunt for a female who fled from a stolen gray Kia. She was among four suspects to run from the vehicle after a brief chase with law enforcement, authorities said.
Some six blocks from where the car stopped, deputies spotted an 11-year-old Black girl in a group of students walking home from Brighton Academy Middle School. The sheriff’s office said she resembled one of the suspects and that she was also wearing similar clothing, prompting deputies to detain her.
Video taken by a person at the scene shows the girl standing with her hands cuffed behind her back, then sitting and crying on the snow-covered sidewalk.
At one point, a female deputy tells her that someone wearing “the exact same thing you’re wearing just stole a car,” causing another child to respond: “We can’t drive.”
“What do you mean? Most kids can’t drive, and they’re still out here stealing cars,” the deputy says.
Despite protests from her and her friends, the unidentified pre-teen remained in handcuffs for about seven minutes before deputies realized they had the wrong person.
“Upon detainment, deputies diligently tried to quickly compare the juvenile with video evidence obtained via dashcam,” police said in a release issued after the incident. “In that comparison, it was clear that the detained juvenile was not the suspect we were seeking, and she was immediately released.”
The Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office has since defended the deputies involved in the incident.
“In reviewing the incident, the detainment of the juvenile was lawful and reasonable, given the juvenile’s proximity and clothing description,” the sheriff’s office said, noting that even children are routinely handcuffed to prevent them from fleeing, fighting or destroying evidence.
Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley echoed the statement, telling WCSC that the use of cuffs was simply “standard procedure,” especially amid what he called “rampant juvenile crime.”
The incident has also inspired a change in policy for detaining children during criminal investigations, the sheriff’s office said. Now, deputies will have “to notify a parent or guardian of any juvenile who is detained for criminal investigative purposes, no matter how brief the encounter is.”