A Mississippi mom is legally challenging a county’s youth court system after her 10-year-old son, Quantavious Eason, was detained for urinating in public. In a court proceeding, a prosecutor told Quantavious to take a three-month probation agreement or else the charge would get upgraded to disorderly conduct, the Eason family’s attorney, Carlos Moore, said. The probation requirements included Quantavious submitting to drug testing and checking in with a probation officer, Capital B News reports. Because of worries that her third-grade son could encounter roadblocks while applying to college, housing, or employment because of the conviction, his mother, Latonya Eason, did not sign the documents. Moore filed a motion with the court to dismiss the charge and says he is ready to go to trial, if his motion is denied.
Quantavious's "offense" was getting out of his mother’s car, turning his back to the road, and relieving himself. There was no nearby public restroom. At first, an unidentified Senatobia police officer pulled up and chastised Quantavious; but other officers and a lieutenant told his mother they had to arrest him. “We do not believe that if a white officer saw a white young boy discreetly urinating that he would have stopped to say anything to him,” Moore said. “We are led to believe that this was just Mississippi-bred racism.”