Farmington, AR — A disturbing video was shared with the Free Thought Project this week showing the brutal arrest of a 15-year-old kid for allegedly possessing a marijuana pipe. The incident was captured on video by the teen's friend and it shows Farmington police officer abuse a kid for no other reason than they could.
According to a report on Northwest Arkansas Lifestyle, on New Year's Eve, the teen was in the bathroom of a convenience store, with his friend, when he was approached by two police officers who demanded to know what the teen had in his pocket.
When asked by police what was in his pocket, the teen originally denied having anything. However, he eventually admitted to having a pipe for smoking marijuana and at this point, things got bloody, according to the report.
When the teen went to pull the pipe from his pocket, the officers allegedly threw the child against the bathroom wall—breaking out one of his teeth. As the officers yell at the teen to stop resisting—which is clearly not happening—the teen screams in agony trying to tell the cops that he is not resisting.
When the 15-year-old mouthed off to the cops after becoming frustrated with the fact that they keep telling him to "stop resisting," the officers then threw him to the ground. At this point, as seen on the video, the officers pile on top of the young man, kneeling in his back and appear to be punishing him.
Again, the 15-year-old boy loses his temper, calling the officers—who just broke out his tooth—"pieces of shit." This insult apparently caused the cops to inflict even more pain as we here the teen's screams become even more agonizing. It is truly hard to watch.
As Michael Stephen writes, for NWAL:
Speaking for myself, I am horrified and disgusted at this behavior from law enforcement. These two cops, who are clearly larger and far stronger than the 5’7”, 125 LB., 15-year-old obviously did not feel a threat of danger while they left another unattended teenager to film them. The boy continually cries out that he isn’t resisting. When he loses his temper, letting out a barrage of curses at the bully cop who just slammed his face into a wall, breaking his front tooth out; the officer elbows his face and twists the kid’s arms all the way up his back in what is clearly excessive and unnecessary force and revenge.In a community that is usually a small and fairly quiet community, the police forces seem to like to ignore rising gang problems and focus their attention on teens smoking weed, treating them like potential violent offenders? These officers were clearly NOT in danger, felt no threat of being in danger and had no cause to exert the amount of force they used on this child, which left medical damage to not only his face, but left a myriad of muscle damage to his back and shoulders.
For allegedly possessing a pipe to smoke a plant, a 15-year-old child was brutally attacked, his tooth knocked out, and he was kidnapped by people who claim to protect society. Sadly, many people will likely claim that this kid deserved what he got because he shouldn't have had the pipe. And, sadly, those people are the problem.
If you think beating and kidnapping a child will somehow solve his problems, think again. Of course, childhood marijuana use has been shown in studies to have the potential for harm. However, violent police action does nothing to solve this problem. When watching the video below, ask yourself what causes more harm; beating a child or smoking weed?