Newly released police body camera footage showed officers detaining a 5-year-old boy who left his school grounds in Maryland, putting handcuffs on him and repeatedly saying he should be beaten and spanked.
The footage, released Friday, showed two Montgomery County Police officers responding to a call from East Silver Spring Elementary School about a child who ran away from the school on Jan. 14, 2020.
The officers are heard in the video repeatedly discussing how the child should be disciplined saying he needs "whoopings" and "spanking." At one point, the female officer said he should be put in a crate.
"These are for people who don't want to listen and don't know how to act," the male officer says, putting a handcuff on one of the child's wrists and placing his hands behind his back. "Is that how you want to live your life?" the male cop says while holding handcuffs.
The child's family filed a lawsuit in January against the police officers involved in the incident, the county, and the Montgomery County Board of Education.
The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and claims the child suffered "severe and extreme emotional distress" following the incident, ABC News reported.
The officers' conduct is described as "malicious, grossly negligent, reckless and in deliberate disregard of the emotional stress it would inflict on the child,” in the court document.
Montgomery County Police Department said there was an investigation into the officers' conduct, but the findings are confidential under Maryland law and both officers remain employed by the force.
