Say Anything Blog

From the Morning Journal via the Drudge Report:

A 9-year-old boy was arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed Saturday because he was waving a toy gun over his head while seated on a bench outside a store, according to a Lorain police report.

His mother, Tamyka Saunders of Sheffield Lake, said her son, Thomas Clark Jr., told Lorain police when they approached him outside a Broadway business that the gun was a toy. An officer aimed his weapon at the boy's head, ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and arrested him for juvenile delinquency by reason of inducing panic, according to the police report.

Saunders, 28, was also charged with obstruction of justice and resisting arrest when she pleaded with police not to arrest her son and to give him a warning, according to a police report.

''He doesn't deserve this. He is not a bad kid at all. That's what I was trying to explain to the officer. It's just not fair,'' Saunders said.

Saunders was getting her hair done at the Northern Institute of Cosmetology on Broadway near Seventh Street when the incident began.

Saunders said she and her son were spending the day together . Saunders said her son got his hair cut first, and then he went outside to play while waiting on her.

Thanks to the fearless officers of the Sheffield Lake Police Department this nine-year-old boy will probably be afraid of police officers for the rest of his life. I've thought about this situation over and over in my mind and I cannot fathom why the officers couldn't have simply warned the boy and moved on. Instead, they pointed a gun at him and arrested him.

A stern lecture from the officer, backed up by the mother, would have gone a long way to instruct the boy about proper conduct and develop respect for law enforcement. In all likelihood has this boy enters his teenage years he is going to resent law enforcement.

The article isn't very clear about what he was doing with the toy gun besides "waving" it around. There's a lot of room speculation. I'm assuming he was acting as most little boys do with their toy guns and pretending to shoot things or pretending to be a soldier. Harmless stuff, really. I could see where a pedestiran observing the boy would be concerned, but the officers arresting the boy even after learning that the gun was a toy is just plain lunacy.

Its becoming more and more apparent that our law enforcement agencies need to be injected with a firm does of common sense.