'Help me, please!': Shocking body cam video shows cop handcuffing and arresting a frightened 6-year-old girl
25 February 2020
In September 2019, Orlando, Florida Police Chief Rolando Orlón announced that Officer Dennis Turner had been fired from the Orlando Police Department for arresting two six-year-old students without the approval of a commanding officer. And a body camera video of one of the arrests, the Tampa Bay Times reports, has been released publicly.
The six-year-old in the September 2016 video is Kaia Rolle, a student at Lucious & Emma Nixon Academy (a charter school). Rolle, according to the Tampa Bay Times’ Grace Toohey, “had a tantrum earlier in the day where she had kicked and punched three school employees.”
When Turner arrived, he handcuffed Rolle behind her back using plastic zip ties and placed her in the back seat of a police SUV. In the video, Rolle can be heard saying, “Help me, help me, please!”
An employee of the school asked Turner, “The restraints, are they necessary?” And he replied, “If she was bigger, she would have been wearing regular handcuffs.”
Zip ties rather than metal handcuffs are typically used in mass arrest situations — for example, riots or protests that turn violent.
On the same day Rolle was arrested, Turner also arrested a six-year-old boy for “misdemeanor battery,” according to Toohey. Orlando Police Department officials said that Turner violated department policy by not getting permission to arrest the children; in Orlando, a supervisor’s permission is required if an officer arrests anyone under the age of 12.
Watch the video below: