Body cam footage released this week shows police in Orlando, Florida arresting a crying six-year-old girl.
An attorney representing the child's family shared the footage, which shows the child being restrained by zip ties, with a regional NBC News affiliate. "Please let me go," the child is heard pleading with the officers. According to the accompanying report, the incident shown in the newly released footage occurred on Sept. 19 of last year at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy, a charter school in Orlando.
At one point, Orlando Police Department officer Dennis Turner—who is also said to have arrested another child—is heard saying that handcuffs would have been used if the child were bigger.
"On behalf of myself and the entire Orlando Police Department, I apologize to the children involved and their families," Orlando police chief Orlando Rolon said back in September. "As a grandfather of three children less than 11 years old, I can only imagine how traumatic this was for everyone involved."
A police report saw the child being alleged to have kicked and punched staff members at the charter school, with police reportedly claiming at the time that one staff member was quoted as saying she wanted to pass chargers against the child. That staff member, however, later disputed the police’s account and clarified that they did not want the child to be placed under arrest.
Ultimately, State Attorney Aramis Ayala confirmed that charges against the six-year-old girl seen in the body cam footage and another child who was arrested in an unrelated incident at the same school would not be pursued. Turner, meanwhile, was announced by the department to have been fired one week after the troubling incident shown in the footage.
