Cop pulls gun on two innocent boys, threatens mom with Taser.
Rarely a day goes by that Americans don’t hear news of police wrongfully arresting someone. In many ways, Americans have grown numb to the fact that police and other government officials routinely violate our Fourth Amendment rights. But now, an Arkansas family working with the Institute for Justice has asked the United States Supreme Court to reaffirm one of this country’s most important founding principles: that when government officials violate our constitutional rights, citizens can hold them accountable in court.
Arkansas Mom Fights To Hold Police Accountable
In January 2018, Haden and Weston Young—two boys, aged 12 and 14—were heading home from their grandparents’ house. As they approached their home, a police car came around the corner with its lights on. The car stopped and the officer emerged with his gun drawn. Within moments, the officer—who was looking for two grown men who’d fled from police earlier—shouted “get on the ground,” handcuffed the boys, and held them at gunpoint.
The boys’ mom, Cassi Pollreis, rushed to the scene. The officer ignored her pleas, pointed his Taser at her and shouted to get back inside. For six terrifying minutes the boys lay face down on a sidewalk while the officer paced around them with his gun pointed at their backs. Eventually the officer’s sergeant arrived, immediately realized a mistake had been made and let the boys go.
Cassi sued and the district court found that the officer had violated the boys’ Fourth Amendment rights. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the boys had never been “arrested” at all. Instead, it said that what constitutes an arrest “can be hazy,” and that the officer’s conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Now, with the help of IJ, Cassi and her boys have asked the United States Supreme Court to take up their case. We’ve filed a Petition for Certiorari asking the Court to rein in the ever-expanding doctrine of “stop and frisk” and make clear that the Fourth Amendment protects citizens from being arrested without probable cause.
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