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Judge won't allow city to release BRPD video from 13-year-old's arrest

3 years 1 month 12 hours ago Thursday, February 25 2021 Feb 25, 2021 February 25, 2021 3:29 PM February 25, 2021 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - A juvenile court judge has refused the city's request to allow the release of police video showing a Baton Rouge officer's scuffle with a 13-year-old boy.

How the teen was restrained during the arrest is under scrutiny. Though we're told the body camera video would clear up what happened.

“You will see what led to the first police call. You will see the police coming to the scene, de-escalating and everybody going their way. You will then see officers responding to another call that comes out approximately 30 minutes later, and then you will see the interaction between the officers that respond to the second call and the group of three kids,” attorney Ron Haley said.

In the days following the incident, police showed the officer's body camera to those close to the case. Since the teen is underage, the video would have needed approval from a judge for it to be released to the general public. 

Sources say the situation started when two teens, later seen in that video, were tormenting other kids. Police were called twice, and on the second visit the two teens became uncooperative.

That time, the officers were more stern, likely annoyed with how the kids were acting. A teenage girl was detained, and an officer detained the teenage boy by wrestling him to the ground when he tried to leave.

People who've watched the video and talked with us say body camera video does not show the boy being choked.

The teen's attorney, Ron Haley still disagrees with how quickly things escalated.

“I don't understand why he was placed in a headlock. I think there are things that could have been done to avoid that confrontation completely,” he said

But Haley praised BRPD and Chief Murphy Paul for reacting quickly to the videos that surfaced online.

"If we're going to criticize the police department and other law enforcement agencies for not being transparent, I think it's important to commend them when they are transparent. I think it does show a shift, at least in BRPD, when there's a critical incident as far as getting that information out to at least the families and legal representatives.”

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