various school staff & police officers, Murfreesboro, Tennessee(April 2016)[false arrest of 10 kids]

The incident started when a busybody teacher (name unknown) at Hobgood Elementary School (Murfreesboro City Elementary School District) saw a video on a student's phone & turned it over to the police. Not much ever happens in Murfreesboro, so the donut eaters jumped on the crime of the century and arrested a bunch of kids on the ludicrous charge of "criminal responsibility for conduct of another."

As government employees, public school teachers are also governed by the Fourth Amendments restrictions on unlawful search and seizure. That question, as best I can tell, has not yet been raised.

The first civil suit involved the three children of the Crawford family, of whom two were not on the video and could not possibly have present (one was home sick, the other was attending an awards banquet), and the third was not shown or heard on the video. The defendents settled this lawsuit for approx. $20K per child, i.e. $10K per cuff.

A second lawsuit regarding four other children was filed in May, 2018.

And there is a third lawsuit, I don't have any specifics yet.​

Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr, too stupid to eat donuts, let alone to run a police department


Officer Chrystal Templeton, blonde & stupid, the prime instigator behind this debacle, and she has no shame: "Rather than being thankful to keep her job with Murfreesboro Police in light of the problems caused with this ill-advised and faulty arrest, Templeton disagreed with the discipline and requested a hearing before the chief, according to records." Dumb just keeps getting dumber the more I read about this case.​

These Elementary School Students Avoided a Fight -- but Were Arrested Anyway

It's hard to imagine just one child between the ages of 6 and 10 getting arrested for any reason, but the thought of five elementary school–aged kids in handcuffs for the "crime" of not stopping a fight is nearly incomprehensible. Sadly, that's exactly what happened in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, last week -- and their parents (not to mention a lot of other people) are understandably outraged. If you're hoping, at this point, that maybe learning the details of this incident will make it somehow less absurd, I'm sorry to tell you that's not the case -- there's literally nothing about this ...

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http://thestir.cafemom.com/politics...ntary_school_students_avoided?ct=piping_hot_6

 

Tennessee first-graders cuffed, arrested, charged

Police handcuffed multiple students, ages 6 to 11, at a public elementary school in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Friday, inspiring public outcry and adding fuel to already heightened tensions between law enforcement and communities of color nationwide. The arrests at Hobgood Elementary School occurred after the students were accused of not stopping a fight that happened several days earlier off campus. A juvenile center later released the students, but local community members now call for action — police review of the incident and community conversation — and social justice experts across the country use words such as "startling" and "flabbergasted" in ...

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http://www.thv11.com/news/tennessee-first-graders-cuffed-arrested-charged/143845163

 

Lawmakers call for investigation of child arrests in Murfreesboro

A pair of Nashville Democratic lawmakers are calling for state and federal law enforcement to investigate actions by Murfreesboro police that led to an unknown number of arrests of school-age children. Murfreesboro police arrested several students, ages 6 to 11, on Friday at Hobgood Elementary School after they reportedly didn't break up a fight off school grounds. The students have been released, but House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Stewart and Rep. John Ray Clemmons are echoing the outrage of parents and community members about why the children were arrested. Stewart and Clemmons want the U.S. Justice Department and Tennessee Bureau ...

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https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/19/lawmakers-call-investigation-child-arrests-murfreesboro/83230218/

 

Five children aged under 13 are arrested in school, handcuffed and taken to jail 'because they failed to intervene in an off-campus argument over a basketball'

• Five children aged between eight and 13 arrested on Friday, police said
• Majority were arrested at Hobgood Elementary School in Murfreesboro
• Officers handcuffed them, took them to jail and charged them for not intervening in a fight over a basketball that was filmed off-campus
• Zacchaeus Crawford said three of his children were among those arrested and called cop's actions 'nonsense in the fullest definition'
• More than 150 people vented their fury at community meeting on Sunday where police chief promised the incident would be investigated

Parents have reacted with fury after Tennessee police decided to arrest at least five children at school for not intervening in a fight that took place off campus. Zacchaeus Crawford said cops arrested his daughters, aged 11 and 10, and his son aged nine at Hobgood Elementary School in Murfreesboro on Friday, with two other kids aged eight and 13. Crawford told WSMV that the five youngsters were handcuffed and taken to a juvenile detention center to be charged with criminal responsibility of another after failing to intervene in a fight. The incident in question took place in Crawford's back ...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...led-intervene-campus-argument-basketball.html

 

Police chief apologizes after officers handcuff and arrest TEN Tennessee children aged 11 or under who were filmed punching and taunting boy

• Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr apologized for the April 15 incident
• He said he was 'saddened' and will open investigation into police conduct
• But he added that police needed to intervene in this case
• The video shows a single boy being punched and taunted by many others
• It was altered to obscure the boys' identities
• The charges against the boys will not be dropped

A Tennessee police chief has apologized to a furious community and promised an investigation into why his officers handcuffed and arrested ten Murfreesboro children all, aged 11 or under, who were filmed bullying a boy over a basketball. 'I am so saddened, and I'm so sorry this incident happened,' Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr told The Tennessean, 'because I truly think it could have been avoided.' However, the paper reported, there are no plans to dismiss the charges, which are now in front of the Juvenile Court of Rutherford County. The video, which was edited to obscure the kids' identities, ...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3557668/Police-chief-apologizes-arrest-10-children.html

 

Black Children Were Jailed For A Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened To The Adults In Charge.

Chapter 1: “What in the World?”

Three police officers were crowded into the assistant principal’s office at Hobgood Elementary School, and Tammy Garrett, the school’s principal, had no idea what to do. One officer, wearing a tactical vest, was telling her: Go get the kids. A second officer was telling her: Don’t go get the kids. The third officer wasn’t saying anything. Garrett knew the police had been sent to arrest some children, although exactly which children, it would turn out, was unclear to everyone, even to these officers. The names police had given the principal included four girls, now sitting in classrooms throughout the school. ...

Chapter 2: “The Mother of the County”:

Eleven children in all were arrested over the video, including the 8-year-old taken in by mistake. Media picked up the story. Parents and community leaders condemned the actions of police. “Unimaginable, unfathomable,” a Nashville pastor said. “Unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” “insane,” three state legislators said. But Rutherford County’s juvenile court judge focused instead on the state of youth, telling a local TV station: “We are in a crisis with our children in Rutherford County. … I’ve never seen it this bad.” Rutherford County established the position of elected juvenile court judge in 2000, and ever since, Donna Scott Davenport has been the ...

Chapter 3: “Yeah, That’s the Charge”

On the same Friday afternoon as three police officers jammed into the assistant principal’s office at Hobgood Elementary School, three other people huddled in another office a few miles away, to discuss what charge these kids could face. Chrystal Templeton, the police officer investigating the video, wanted to arrest every kid who watched the fight and “get them all in front” of Davenport, she would say later during an internal police investigation. Charging them was helping them, Templeton believed, because “juvenile court is about rehabilitation.” Templeton thought an appropriate charge might be conspiracy to commit assault. But then she met ...

Chapter 4: “We Will Hold the Juvenile”

When police took the 12-year-old twins to the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center on Saturday, April 16, 2016, the odds that either would be jailed were long, at least under Tennessee law. Recognizing the harm that can come from incarcerating kids, Tennessee lawmakers have placed narrow limits on when a child accused of being delinquent can be held in a secure lockdown prior to receiving a court hearing. The child must fit one of six categories, precisely defined. They include being a jail escapee; being wanted elsewhere for a felony offense; or being accused, on substantial evidence, of a crime ...

Chapter 5: “They’re Not Coming Out Better Than They Went In”

She had tried to stop the scuffle. The evidence was right there, in the video. Stop, Tay-Tay. Stop, Tay-Tay. Then, asked by police for help, she had helped. The police had responded by arresting her, as she vomited and cried, saying that she had “encouraged and caused” the fight. When E.J. was taken to the detention center, she was processed along with C.C., her best friend. Jail staff recorded E.J.’s name and birthdate (she was 10 years old), conducted a 16-point search and confiscated her jewelry, all her small rings. Then they placed the two fourth graders in a holding ...

Chapter 6: “There Were No Concerns”

In the immediate aftermath of the arrests at Hobgood Elementary, the Murfreesboro police chief promised an internal investigation. By year’s end, the department had finished its report. The officer who bailed before the arrests got a one-day suspension. So did the sergeant in charge of school resource officers. Three other supervisors also were disciplined: the sergeant, lieutenant and major who had not stepped in, even as Officer Williams called them from the assistant principal’s office, raising the alert. Each received a reprimand. As for Templeton, who had initiated the arrests, the department made one finding: Her work had been “unsatisfactory.” ...

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...most-nothing-happened-to-the-adults-in-charge

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