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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Police on Wednesday defended the use of a "spit mask" in plain mesh on an aggressive 12-year-old boy while angry passers-by filmed the tension in Sacramento while objecting that the boy was detained.
The officers "used a pin mask appropriately to protect themselves and defuse the situation," police chief Daniel Hahn said in a statement. "I am grateful that … no one was hurt during this meeting."
Police also released a video of the camera on the body of an officer showing the boy in trouble while the officers were working to calm him down. He curses and screams several times that he can not breathe after being handcuffed and placed face down, and that the police put the mask on his head.
"Hey, hey, you have to calm down, man. Calm down, agree? The officer answers.
Police said they saw the boy fleeing a security guard and helped detain the young teenager on April 28th. He was later handed over to his mother and charged with murdering a police officer and resistance fighters.
Sacramento's lawyer, Mark T. Harris, said he was considering taking legal action on behalf of the young man and his mother against the city, the security guard and an employee. from a nearby restaurant, which would have also helped to detain the boy.
Harris runs the Sacramento office of a national law firm specializing in civil rights that also represents Stephon Clark's family. Clark was a 22-year-old unarmed vandal suspect who was killed by the Sacramento police a year ago, resulting in national protests.
The 12-year-old boy was attending a neighborhood carnival with an adult and his older sister when he was confronted with the safety officer, Harris said.
"To a certain extent, the police have themselves been victims," he said. "They did not know what was going on."
The problem was the police reaction, he said: "They immediately used force to try to detain the young man, he passed hands very quickly around the neck, hands around his arm."
Harris said it was not clear that the boy actually spit, but even if he did, there was no reason to believe that it created a health risk. In addition, he added that the police should have removed the mask after the arrival of the boy's mother and asked him to remove it because his son had respiratory problems.
"The officer should have defused the hostilities," Harris said. Instead, the incident finally attracted eight officers as well as the safety officer and a restaurant employee, "all this for a 12-year-old child who, at worst, was accused of asking for money to people, which he did not do. "
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