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Deputies in NY Handcuff, Detain 11-Year-Old Girl, Mistaking Her As Car-Theft Suspect, Who Also Wore Pink Jacket

Crime and Justice News

The Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office in New York said on Tuesday that it would change its policy regarding detained children after a video shared widely online showed deputies handcuffing an 11-year-old girl the day before. The girl was detained by deputies in Syracuse, N.Y., who were looking for a similarly dressed person who was wanted in connection with the theft of a car less than an hour before, the sheriff’s office said, the New York Times reports. Tobias Shelley, the sheriff of Onondaga County, said he had met with the girl’s mother on Tuesday and that he understood why she was upset that she had not been told about the handcuffing. His office said that its new policy would be to “notify a parent or guardian of any juvenile who is detained for criminal investigative purposes, no matter how brief the encounter is.”


Deputies saw the 11-year-old girl, who has not been publicly identified, six blocks from the scene of the theft, according to the authorities. The girl was handcuffed for seven minutes, then released when the deputies realized she was not the person they were looking for. Like the 11-year-old, the suspect is Black, according to the authorities. The suspect has not been caught or identified. The video of the handcuffing drew fierce criticism, especially after the sheriff’s office said it had not notified the child’s parents that she had been detained. In the video, the girl stands with her hands cuffed behind her back next to two deputies on a snowy sidewalk. Later, she can be seen sobbing in confusion and fear. The girl is wearing a very similar outfit to the one worn by the suspect in the car theft, according to a photo of the suspect released by the sheriff’s office: a puffy pink winter jacket, dark patterned pants, white shoes and a pink bag. The office said the girl was released after the deputies documented differences between her and the suspect, including the pattern of their pants, subtle differences in their pink jackets, the length of their hair and differences in their complexion.


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