Royal Smart remembers every detail. The feeling of the handcuffs on his wrists. The panic as he was led outside into the cold March darkne...
Royal Smart remembers every detail.
The feeling of the handcuffs on his wrists.
The panic as he was led outside into the cold March darkness with his mother, Domonique Wilson, and his older brother, arms raised, to face a wall of police officers pointing their guns.
He was eight years old.
Neither he nor anyone else in his family's Chicago home was arrested that night two years ago, and police wielding a warrant to look for illegal weapons found none.
'I can't go to sleep'
Even now, he is tormented by visions of officers bursting through doors of houses and tearing rooms apart, ordering people to lie on the floor.
An Associated Press investigation has found children as young as six have been treated harshly by officers: handcuffed, felled by stun guns and pinned to the ground.
And police departments across the United States have few or no safeguards to prevent these incidents.
More than half of minors handled forcibly are black
The AP analysed data on approximately 3,000 instances of police use of force against children under the age of 16 year in the previous 11 years across the United States.
Data provided to the AP by Accountable Now — a project of The Leadership Conference Education Fund that aims to create a comprehensive, use-of-force database — includes incidents from 25 police departments in 17 states.
It is a small representation of the 18,000 police agencies nationwide and the millions of daily encounters police have with the public.
Black children made up more than 50 per cent of those who were handled forcibly by police, although they are just 15 per cent of the US child population.
Physical violence, weapons pointed at children
The most common type of force was physical, followed by firearms pointed at or used on children.
Less often, children faced other tactics such as pepper spray or use of police dogs.
In March 2019, Krystal Archie's three children were home when police — on the second occasion in just 11 weeks — kicked open her front door and tore apart the cabinets and dressers searching for drug suspects.
She had never heard of the people they were hunting.
Her oldest child, Savannah, was 14, Telia was 11 and her youngest, Jhaimarion, was seven.
They were ordered to get down on the floor.
Telia said the scariest moment was seeing an officer press his foot into Savannah's back.
Ms Archie said her children "were told, demanded, to get down on the ground as if they were criminals".
Now Savannah's hands shake when she sees a police car coming.
"I get stuck. I get scared," she said.
Families take their experiences to court
The Archie and Wilson families have sued Chicago police, alleging false arrest, wanton conduct and emotional distress.
Chicago police did not comment on these specific cases but said revised policies passed in May required extra planning for vulnerable people such as children before search warrants were served.
However, the attorney for the two families, Al Hofeld Jr, said the incidents were part of a pattern and represented a specific brand of force that falls disproportionately on poor families of colour.
Phone footage refutes police reports
Attorney Na'Shaun Neal represents two Latino boys — identified as RR and PS in court papers — who were involved in an altercation with police on July 4, 2019.
It was a few hours before midnight when a San Fernando, California, police officer stopped to ask if they were lighting fireworks, according to a complaint filed in Federal Court.
The boys had been walking through a park, accompanied by an older brother and his dog.
According to the complaint, the officers followed the group and told them it was past curfew and they needed to take the boys into custody.
Police said the boys were responsible for the fracas that followed and they charged them with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.
However, then a video taken by RR's brother on his phone was presented.
The video shows an officer forcing his 14-year-old brother to the ground and handcuffing him behind his back.
His 13-year-old friend struggles next to him, his neck and shoulders pinned by the officer's knees for 20 seconds.
A judge found the boys not guilty at a bench trial.
Mr Neal is suing the city and the police officer on their behalf.
Officers backed by city officials
The city denied officers used excessive force, maintaining that the boys physically resisted arrest.
While authorities have said there are reasons why police officers are more likely to use force against minorities than against white children, experts think otherwise.
'Implicit bias' leads to 'vicious cycle'
New York child psychiatrist Richard Dudley said many officers have an "implicit bias" that would prompt them to see black children as older and, therefore, more threatening than they were.
It all becomes a vicious cycle, Dr Dudley said.
He said police react badly to these children and to the people they know, so the children react badly to police, leading police to respond even more seriously.
More examples showed up in Minneapolis, where officers pinned children with their body weight at least 190 times.
In Indianapolis, more than 160 children were handcuffed.
In Wichita, Kansas, officers drew or used their tasers on children at least 45 times.
Most children in the dataset were teenagers, but the information included dozens of cases involving children aged 10 years or younger.
Force is occasionally necessary to subdue children, some of whom are accused of serious crimes.
Police reports obtained for a sample of incidents show some children who were stunned or restrained were armed, others were undergoing mental health crises and were at risk of harming themselves.
Still, others showed police escalating use of force after children fled from questioning.
Few use-of-force policies around minors
Some departments have policies that govern how old a child must be to be handcuffed, but very few mention age in their use-of-force policies.
While some offer guidance on how to manage juveniles accused of crimes or how to handle people in mental distress, the AP could find no policy addressing these issues together.
That is by design, policing experts said, in part so that officers can make critical decisions in the moment.
However, that means police do not receive the training they need to deal with children.
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