A 10-year-old Mississippi boy who was arrested for public urination has been sentenced to three months probation, in a decision that lawyers say was influenced by his race.
Quantavious Eason was handcuffed and “caged” after an officer spotted him urinating in a parking lot near an attorney’s office in the small town of Senatobia on 10 August, according to his mother.
The boy was locked in a cell for between 45 minutes and an hour, she said.
On Tuesday, a youth court handed down the sentence to the youngster, requiring him and his mother – LaTonya Eason – to check in with a judge once a month. He will also be required to write a two-page essay about his favourite basketball player, Kobe Bryant.
Carlos Moore, the Eason family’s attorney, said the arrest and subsequent sentence was “unreasonable”.
A photo Ms Eason posted to her Facebook page shows a solemn Quantavious sitting in the back of a cop car— (Latonya Eason/Facebook)
“He did not plead guilty to anything, he was not found guilty of anything but it’s an informal adjustment probation,” Mr Moore told NBC.
“People he should trust to protect and serve, he doesn’t feel that they treated him fairly and that he would get a fair shake in life through the police or the justice system.
“I think it is unreasonable that a 10-year-old would be arrested for doing something I did as a child from Mississippi, and I’m a successful attorney.
“So it’s not criminal and he should never have been in contact with the juvenile justice system for simply urinating discreetly.”
Mr Moore added that race may have played a role in Quantavious’ harsh sentence. “Black boys are demonised or criminalised from a young age,” he said.
“Had he been a little white boy urinating discreetly he would never have been arrested.”
LaTonya Eason with her son Quantavious Eason— (Carlos Moore / Facebook)
Mr Moore said the family intended to take the case to “the highest heights” of the criminal justice system and would file in federal court, adding: “they are going to pay this family for what they have endured.”
Ms Eason previously called for several officers from the Senatobia Police Department to be fired over the incident, after which Quantavious was charged with “child in need of supervision”.
“My son did not deserve that. Nobody’s kid deserves that,” Ms Eason said during a previous news conference. “I would feel the same way if that was somebody else’s child.”
In a statement in August, Senatobia Police Department chief Richard Chandler said that it was “an error in judgment” to take the child into custody when his mother was present.
He said one of the five officers involved in the incident was no longer working at the department.
