What started as a walk home from school ended with an 11-year-old Black girl in handcuffs, crying, shaken and traumatized after a dangerous encounter with White Onondaga County deputies in Syracuse, New York.
Stopping to make snow angels, the young child, who was with her cousin and other girls, was grabbed, cuffed and told she was a car thief.

The deputies said she fit the description—wearing a pink jacket and camo pants—of a person allegedly involved in the Jan. 12 theft of a gray Kia. The innocent girl was detained and handcuffed the day of the theft, according to the sheriff’s department.
Her cousin started recording the encounter on her phone and the moment went viral.
Where would we be without it?
The school children calmly insist their friend is innocent. Police mock them. A female officer says derisively, “Girl, you’re gonna tell me that’s not you?”
The deputies accuse the children of lying. They show the girls a photo of their suspect. According to the sheriff’s office, a 14 year old was arrested in connection with the car theft.
The courageous girls, who continued to defend their friend, pointed out how the appearances of the alleged perpetrator and their companion aren’t the same.
The complexions are different, the hairstyles are different and the patterns on the clothing are different, Black school girls tell professional, trained, armed, adult police officers.
After other deputies arrive and other conversations, handcuffs are taken off. Deputies offer a half-hearted apology but defend their actions. Apologies aren’t being accepted.
“She no longer wants to walk to and from school anymore. That was the only freedom she had and it’s now gone,” said the girl’s mother in an interview with a local TV station.
“I couldn’t even finish watching the video,” she added. “Even if it wasn’t my child, I wouldn’t be able to finish watching the video because that’s not how you handle children.”
“Why would we handcuff this child? Detainees are usually handcuffed initially. Detainees may become uncooperative, may decide to flee, or may decide to fight. In some cases, detainees may be armed or have contraband/evidence they will try to destroy,” said the sheriff’s department. “Handcuffing juveniles in this circumstance is lawful, within policy, and common practice in law enforcement.”
“The NYCLU is extremely disturbed by the aggressive treatment of an 11-year-old Black child at the hands of Syracuse Sheriff’s deputies and their failure to notify the child’s parents. There was no reason to handcuff a scared child, one who had simply been making snow angels,” argued the civil liberties group.

“This mistreatment raises serious concerns about implicit racial bias, which too often leads law enforcement officers to perceive children of color as a threat,” added the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“I’m confused. I’m scared,” say the girls in the video. They note when another police car shows up. “No. I gotta stay with her, that’s my sister. That’s my sister-cousin, we’re related,” the cousin responds when told to move on by officers.
“We can’t leave her,” says another girl.
Onondaga County is just over 75 percent White. In 2022, the New York ACLU said Blacks in the county were convicted 10.2 more times than Whites.
Black children are also disproportionately arrested and prosecuted in Onondaga County. Some 15 years ago a serious bias problem was officially noted but remains.
“The impact of the significant drop in detention varied by the race/ethnicity of the youth, raising concerns about what is called Disproportionate Minority Contact.
DMC occurs when the proportion of youth of color at various points in the juvenile justice system is greater than the proportion of youth of color in the general population,” explained the Project to Reduce Disproportionate Minority Contact with Onondaga County’s Juvenile Justice System in a 2011 final report to the county’s juvenile justice reform committee.
“Racial disparities often become increasingly worse as a young person is processed deeper and deeper into the system,” the report warned. Black youngsters, just 15 percent of county youth and only 38 percent of Syracuse’s youth, were 73 percent of admissions to secure detention, it noted.
That process begins with being held by cops and being arrested.
This isn’t just an Onondaga County or New York state problem: Black youth are 2.4 times more likely to be arrested than White youth and Black girls are four times more likely to be arrested than White girls, say experts.
We must fight against systems and people working to destroy us as we work feverishly to create systems that will protect us and, most importantly, our children. No one is coming to their rescue, but us.
Naba’a Muhammad is editor-in-chief of The Final Call newspaper. He can be reached via www.finalcall.com and [email protected]. Find him on Facebook. Follow @RMfinalcall on X and Instagram.