Heartbreaking moment girl, 11, is reduced to tears as she’s handcuffed after being wrongly accused of car theft

Police officers in New York have apologized over what they say was a case of mistaken identity which saw officers handcuff an 11-year-old Black schoolgirl in Syracuse on Monday afternoon as she walked home from school.

Two deputies from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office were out looking for a female suspect who had been spotted joyriding in a stolen gray Kia when they stopped the Brighton Academy student just five blocks from the site where the car had been abandoned, according to Syracuse.com.

The girl happened to be wearing clothing that closely matched the pink puffy winter jacket, camouflage trousers and white trainers mentioned in the description from which the deputies were working.

Having detained and handcuffed the child, who was clearly shocked and upset by the incident, the deputies questioned her for around seven minutes while the girl’s cousin filmed the scene playing out in the snowbound suburban street, helping to lighten the mood by keeping calm and joking with the parties involved.

The relative also worked hard to persuade the deputies that they had the wrong person, pointing out that the suspect in the photo the officers had since been sent, retrieved from the car’s dashcam, had lighter skin, longer hair and different shoes to the person stood before them.

The case of mistaken identity in Syracuse, New York, on Monday January 13 2025 in which a schoolgirl was handcuff and detained (Syracuse.com/YouTube)

“Girl, you gonna tell me this ain’t you?” one of the deputies asked the handcuffed girl as she presented her with the image on a phone.

“It is what it is,” her partner added. “If you’re honest, it will make it easy.”

But the officers ultimately realized their mistake and released her.

“I’m sorry about it, but you matched the description pretty clearly,” they told the student as they freed her.

Defending the conduct of the deputies on Tuesday, Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Thomas Newton said in a statement: “Handcuffing juveniles in this circumstance is lawful, within policy, and common practice in law enforcement.”

He explained that detainees are usually cuffed in the first instance so that deputies can take control of a situation and to prevent suspects from attempting to flee the scene or lash out, which is particularly important in cases in which the person in question is armed or has incriminating evidence about their person that they might wish to destroy.

Immediately handcuffing a person suspected of a crime can prevent altercations, force and potentially injury, Newton said.

The spokesman added that it is not uncommon for a perfectly innocent member of the public to match a suspect’s description and said the situation on Monday had been unfortunate.

“It’s terrible for this poor kid,” he said. “I mean, no one wants that.”

Sheriff Toby Shelley is understood to have since spoken to the girl’s mother and his office has announced that it has revised its policy so that a parent or guardian of any juvenile will be notified whenever they are detained for criminal investigative purposes, no matter how briefly, and not just in cases of arrest.

“It’s a good policy to have,” Newton said.

“And moving forward, we’re implementing that policy because even the sheriff said: ‘If that was my kid getting handcuffed, I’d want to know about it. I would want someone to tell me.’”

But the victim’s mother, who did not wish to be identified, said her daughter was distraught.

“She no longer wants to walk to and from school anymore,” she told WSAZ.

“That was the only freedom she had, and it’s now gone. I can’t make sense of it. I couldn’t even finish watching the video.

“Even if it wasn’t my child, I wouldn’t be able to finish watching the video because that’s not how you handle children.”

The real culprit in the case of the stolen Kia has not yet been found, Newton said, although three teenage boys aged 13, 14 and 17 involved in the crime were quickly caught, charged with fleeing an officer and the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and released to their parents.

The quartet were spotted in the vehicle at around 1.53pm on Monday afternoon on Grant Boulevard in Syracuse and fled when a traffic stop was attempted, subsequently exiting the car and fleeing near Cannon Street and West Corning Avenue.

Making matters worse, a second patrol car arriving to assist collided with another car on Harrison and South State streets at around 2.05pm, with two officers and the other driver taken to local hospitals for evaluations.

Image Credits and Reference: https://uk.yahoo.com/news/heartbreaking-moment-girl-11-reduced-164158057.html