A 10-year-old black boy who peed in a car park must serve three months’ probation and write a two-page essay on the late basketball star Kobe Bryant, a Mississippi judge has ordered.
Tate County Youth Court Judge Rusty Harlow handed down the sentence on Tuesday after the child’s lawyer reached an agreement with a special prosecutor.
The prosecution threatened to upgrade the charge of “child in need of supervision” to a more serious charge of disorderly conduct if the boy’s family took the case to trial, the boy’s lawyer, Carlos Moore said.
“I thought any sensible judge would dismiss the charge completely. It’s just asinine,” Mr Moore said.
“There were failures in the criminal justice system all the way around.”
Mr Moore said he does not believe a white child would have been arrested under similar circumstances, and he could not find a similar instance of a child receiving a similar sentence for the same offence.
“I don’t think there is a male in America who has not discreetly urinated in public,” Mr Moore said.
The child’s mother said her son peed behind her vehicle while she was visiting a lawyer’s office in Senatobia, Mississippi, on August 10.
Police officers in the town of about 8,100 residents, 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, saw the child peeing and arrested him.
Officers put him in a police car and took him to the station.
Senatobia Police chief Richard Chandler said the child was not handcuffed but his mother said he was put in a cell, according to NBCNews.com.
Days after the incident, Mr Chandler said the officers violated their training on how to deal with children.
He said one of the officers was “no longer employed” and others would be disciplined.
He did not specify whether the former officer was fired or quit, or what type of discipline the others would face.
A worker for Paige Williams, the Tate County Youth Court prosecutor appointed to handle the case, said the lawyer could not comment on cases involving children.
Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights organisation Colour Of Change, said the decision to charge the child did not make sense.
“Nothing about this case from the decisions by the police, the prosecutor, and the judge makes us safer or is a good use of taxpayer resources,” Mr Robinson said in a statement.
He said there is a “long and unforgivable history in Mississippi and across the country” of a “two-tiered justice system” that offers one path for black children and another for white.
It was initially unclear whether prosecutors would take up the case.
Mr Moore requested a dismissal but prosecutors declined.
He planned on going to trial but shifted strategy after prosecutors threatened to upgrade the charges.
The child’s family chose to accept the probation sentence because it would not appear on the boy’s criminal record.
The 10-year-old is required to check in with a probation officer once per month.
Ms Williams initially wanted the child to write a report on “public decency”, but the judge changed the subject to Bryant because the boy is a basketball fan, Mr Moore said.
Marie Ndiaye, deputy director of the Justice Project at the Advancement Project, a racial justice organisation, said the arrest is emblematic of broader issues in the criminal justice system.
“Sentencing anyone, let alone a young child, to probation under these facts is sure to add to the trauma and denigration this child has suffered since their arrest,” Ms Ndiaye said.
“This is all the more proof that we need to severely limit police interactions with civilians, from petty retail theft to traffic stops and even so-called ‘quality-of-life’ offences.
“For black people in America, it is a matter of life and death.”
