Disturbing body camera footage captured the moment Florida cops arrested a sobbing six-year-old girl as she begged him to let her go.
First grader Kaia Rolle was detained at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy Charter School in Orlando on September 19 after she allegedly threw a temper tantrum in class and hit three employees.
Kaia’s family released the video of the outrageous arrest on Monday, which shows the child tearfully pleading for officers to let her go before they restrained her with zip ties.
One of the officers involved, Dennis Turner, was fired by the Orlando Police Department in the wake of the incident as it was revealed that he’d also arrested another six-year-old in an unrelated incident at the school on the same day.
Body camera footage shows Orlando police officer Dennis Turner arresting sobbing six-year-old Kaia Rolle at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy Charter School on September 19
Kaia’s family released the video of the outrageous arrest on Monday, which shows the child tearfully pleading for officers to let her go before they restrained her with zip ties
Kaia (pictured) was arrested for misdemeanor battery after she threw a temper tantrum and hit three school employees. Prosecutors dropped the charge the next day
Turner (pictured) was fired by the Orlando Police Department in the wake of the incident as it was revealed that he’d also arrested another six-year-old in an unrelated incident at the school on the same day
In the footage Turner is heard telling a school employee: ‘She’s going to have to come with us now,’ before he motions to Kaia and commands: ‘Stand up, stand up … come over here.’
‘What are those for?’ Kaia asks.
‘It’s for you,’ Turner replies.
Kaia then breaks down in tears as she begs another officer not to put her in the restraints.
‘It’s not going to hurt,’ the second says.
‘No, no, I don’t want handcuffs on!’ Kaia howls. ‘No, don’t put handcuffs on! Please!’
The officers then escort the girl to a waiting police SUV as she cries: ‘I don’t want to go in the police car. Please!’
‘You don’t want to?’ the second cop says. ‘You have to.’
‘Please — give me a second chance! Please, let me go!’ Kaia wails.
The six-year-old was transported to a juvenile detention center and charged with misdemeanor battery, according to an arrest report obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
Prosecutors dropped the charge the following day.
Turner and another officer led Kaia to a police SUV after they restrained her with zip ties
‘Please — give me a second chance! Please, let me go!’ Kaia wailed as she was placed in the car
The six-year-old was then transported to a juvenile detention center for processing
Staff at the school didn’t appear to try to stop Kaia’s arrest, but one employee is heard in the video asking: ‘The restraints, are they necessary?’
In his arrest report, Turner wrote that a member of the school’s faculty, Beverly Stoute, had asked to press charges against Kaia.
The school has denied that claim and said they never wanted her arrested in the first place.
The video does not show any staff member attempting to stop Kaia’s arrest, though several appear visibly shaken.
‘The restraints, are they necessary?’ one school employee asks in the footage.
‘Yes,’ Turner replied, adding: ‘If she was bigger, she would have been wearing regular handcuffs.’
He also told staff that the youngest person he ever arrested previously was a seven-year-old boy caught stealing at a supermarket.
He said he arrested the boy because he ‘thought it was a joke’ after other children caught in the act started crying.
Kaia’s grandmother, Meralyn Kirkland (pictured with her), released the arrest footage in hopes that it will convince officials to set a minimum age for arrests in Florida
Turner was terminated after Kaia’s arrest because he violated agency policy, which states that supervisor approval is required to arrest a child under the age of 12.
Kaia’s grandmother, Meralyn Kirkland, has called for a change in state law, which does not cite a minimum age for arrest in Florida.
Kirkland hopes that the video of Kaia’s arrest will help convince state officials to set a minimum age of 12.
‘I knew that what they did was wrong, but I never knew she was begging for help,’ Kirkland told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.
‘I watched her break.’
Kirkland said Kaia suffers from sleep apnea, which caused her to lash out in class.
She said that her granddaughter had to stand on a stool to have her booking photo taken at the county juvenile center.
On the same day, Turner arrested a six-year-old boy at Kaia’s school for misdemeanor battery in an unrelated incident.
That boy was released before he was processed.
A week after Kaia’s family raised alarm about the arrests, Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon told reporters that he was ‘appalled’ by Turner’s actions.
‘As a grandfather of three children less than 11 years old, I can only imagine how traumatic this was for everyone involved,’ Rolon said.
‘We could fathom the idea of a six-year-old being put in the back of a police car.’
Turner retired from the Orlando Police Department in 2018 and was working in the department’s Reserve Unit when he arrested Kaia and the other boy.
Records released last fall revealed that he had been disciplined seven times during his 23-year tenure and was the subject of 16 citizen complaints involving allegations of excessive force and racial profiling.