Michigan Police Chief, Mayor Apologize After Arrest Video Of 12-year-old Boy Goes Viral

On see­ing the video of this inci­dent, I imme­di­ate­ly post­ed the fol­low­ing com­ment to one of my social media pages:

A TikTok video of Michigan police arrest­ing a 12-year-old boy and putting him in hand­cuffs was an “unfor­tu­nate mis­un­der­stand­ing” that stemmed from the foot chase of a sus­pect want­ed in a sus­pect­ed vehi­cle theft. The video led to three state­ments by Mayor of Lansing Andy Schor and local police by late Friday after­noon. The video appears to show a young, Black male wear­ing neon yel­low shorts and a white T‑shirt being detained by a police offi­cer out­side an apart­ment com­plex. A man tells offi­cers they are trau­ma­tiz­ing his son and the male was put into a police vehi­cle before lat­er being released to the man who said he was the indi­vid­u­al’s father. A video post­ed to TikTok account careyann372 has gen­er­at­ed mil­lions of views and posts through­out social media with users say­ing the boy was detained as he was throw­ing away garbage.The video lasts just more than 4 min­utes. It was not clear where in the city the video was taken.

“Kid tak­ing out trash being harassed by police. Father defend­ing his son. Wrong per­son,” the TikTok poster wrote on Thursday. In a Zoom call with reporters on Friday night, lawyers for the fam­i­ly of Tashawn Bernard asked that police take down its Facebook post, say­ing the pho­to makes it appear as though the shirt Tashawn was wear­ing was white, when it actu­al­ly was gray. The sus­pect police were look­ing for was wear­ing a white shirt, they said. “It does not accu­rate­ly reflect what Tashawn was wear­ing,” said Ayanna Neal of Grewal Law. “They need to take down the post.” Lansing police post­ed an ini­tial expla­na­tion on its social media accounts ear­li­er Friday, fol­lowed late Friday after­noon by a state­ment from Police Chief Ellery Sosebee. “On Thursday after­noon, our offi­cers were inves­ti­gat­ing a string of Kia thefts, includ­ing a spe­cif­ic one report­ed on the 3600 block of W. Jolly Road with mul­ti­ple sus­pects,” the first post on Facebook said. “A wit­ness described a sus­pect as wear­ing neon shorts and a white shirt. A respond­ing offi­cer saw a sub­ject match­ing this descrip­tion and attempt­ed to make con­tact but the sub­ject fled and ran west into the near­by apart­ment complex.

“A dif­fer­ent offi­cer was in the area and saw the young man pic­tured in the viral video wear­ing a very sim­i­lar out­fit and made con­tact with him. The ini­tial offi­cer respond­ed and clar­i­fied that the young man in the video was not the sus­pect who fled ear­li­er. Once this infor­ma­tion was obtained, the young man was released, and offi­cers con­tin­ued to search the area. “We are includ­ing pic­tures of both indi­vid­u­als. We have blurred both pho­tos to pro­tect the iden­ti­ties of the sub­jects.” A pho­to of the peo­ple involved was post­ed, blurred out, along with the state­ment. Posts on X, for­mer­ly Twitter, expressed out­rage over the video and the num­ber of offi­cers involved in the inci­dent. “Just a kid tak­ing out the trash — America,” user Kenny Akers wrote. “This city is pay­ing six police offi­cers to arrest a child for throw­ing out garbage,” user Frank Giugliano wrote. “I hope some­one gets ahold of the young man detained today while tak­ing out the trash because he ‘fits the descrip­tion’ and lifts him up. He will need sup­port around him,” Rob Thomas wrote in a Facebook post. LPD said they hope to put the sit­u­a­tion behind them. “Community rela­tions is a top pri­or­i­ty for us as a depart­ment, from top-down,” the depart­ment wrote. “Our hope is we can put this unfor­tu­nate case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ behind us and con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent the com­mu­ni­ty that we serve.” After 4 p.m., the depart­ment released a state­ment attrib­uted to Sosebee.

“The offi­cers of the Lansing Police Department are work­ing very hard to address the recent car thefts plagu­ing our city. In doing so, yes­ter­day offi­cers detained a young man who was wear­ing sim­i­lar cloth­ing and in the same apart­ment com­plex as an accused car thief who fled from offi­cers on foot. When the offi­cer made ini­tial con­tact, it was near a trash bin but was after he had dis­posed of any garbage. The young man was then released to his father when elim­i­nat­ed as the accused. The com­mand offi­cer on the scene made con­tact with the young man’s father and explained the sit­u­a­tion and apol­o­gized for the mis­un­der­stand­ing. I have reviewed the inci­dent and can con­firm the offi­cer who con­tact­ed and detained the young man was respect­ful and pro­fes­sion­al dur­ing his inves­ti­ga­tion.” “It’s unfor­tu­nate that inci­dents like this occur but through com­mu­ni­ca­tion and shar­ing of infor­ma­tion, we can help peo­ple under­stand the whole sto­ry. We under­stand that some­thing like this has an impact on all par­ties involved,” the state­ment read. “As the Chief of Police, I want to apol­o­gize that this inci­dent had such an effect on this young man and his fam­i­ly. I’m ask­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty to con­sid­er all the facts of the sit­u­a­tion before mak­ing a judg­ment. The rela­tion­ship with our com­mu­ni­ty has been and will con­tin­ue to be a top pri­or­i­ty for the Lansing Police Department.”

And late Friday after­noon, Schor apol­o­gized to the 12-year-old and his fam­i­ly in a state­ment. “The Lansing Police Department made a mis­take in detain­ing the wrong per­son dur­ing a vehi­cle theft inves­ti­ga­tion,” Schor said in the state­ment. “The young man was wear­ing the exact same cloth­ing as the sus­pect, how­ev­er, it was quick­ly con­firmed he was not the sus­pect in ques­tion and he was released. I join Chief Sosebee in apol­o­giz­ing to the young man and his fam­i­ly.” “LPD is in con­tact with the fam­i­ly and pro­vid­ing resources and sup­port for any trau­ma involved. Our offi­cers do their absolute best to pro­tect Lansing, but in this case, a mis­take was made, and we own it and apol­o­gize to those affected.
As Mayor, I once again offer my sin­cere apol­o­gy to this young man.” Attorneys for the fam­i­ly said Tashawn was tak­ing out the trash at his home when he was approached by an offi­cer hold­ing a gun at his side. The boy was put in hand­cuffs and placed into the back of a police vehi­cle. “Our client has been trau­ma­tized by this inci­dent, so much so that young Tashawn does not want to go out­side … even to get the mail,” attor­ney Rico Neal said. “Instead of try­ing put the inci­dent behind them, police should have apol­o­gized to Tashawn and con­sid­ered how they can make the sit­u­a­tion right.” the attor­neys said. Tashawn’s father, Michael Bernard, described look­ing out­side and see­ing his son in hand­cuffs. He said his son “should not have been sub­ject­ed to this treat­ment.” The attor­neys said they were explor­ing “all legal options” for the fam­i­ly, includ­ing a pos­si­ble law­suit. They said the fam­i­ly wants to ensure that the same sit­u­a­tion does­n’t hap­pen to any­one else.