Cops Arrest 7-Year-Old On Dirt Bike

Baltimore Mayor Apologizes After Boy Was Handcuffed And Booked For Allegedly Riding On Sidewalk

(CBS/AP)  Baltimore police arrested a 7-year-old boy, handcuffed him, then hauled him off to the station house where the mother claims they took his mug shot and fingerprints.

The youngster's offense? He allegedly rode a dirt bike on a sidewalk.

"They scared me," Gerard Mungo Jr., age 7, told The Baltimore Examiner before breaking down in tears.

"They locked me up on the bench with one hand," he said.

The incident brought new heat on a department already under fire for making what critics call frivolous or unnecessary arrests.

Mayor Sheila Dixon apologized Friday for the arrest.

"It is clear to me that the arrest was wrong, that the officers on the scene should not have arrested the child, and on behalf of the City of Baltimore I apologize to the boy and his parents," she said at a press conference Friday, flanked by the police commissioner.

Police commissioner Leonard Hamm, while noting concern over the nuisance of dirt bikes, said that the arrest of the 7-year-old "was not consistent with my philosophy of trying to solve problems in the neighborhoods" and would be investigated internally.

Gerard's family members say the bike wasn't even running at the time, reports CBS station WJZ-TV. "They yanked me off the dirt bike," Gerard said.

The police commissioner said that the officer had the option of having a conversation with the parent or confiscating the bike. He declined to discuss how the incident unfolded, saying more time was needed to complete the internal investigation.

Dinkins, who turned 7 last month, was sitting on the bike Tuesday with the motor off on a sidewalk near his home in east Baltimore when an officer grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off the bike, according to his mother, Kikisa Dinkins, who witnessed the arrest.

"I told them to let go of my baby," Dinkins recalled. "Since when do you pull a 7-year-old child by his neck and drag him?"

Dinkins said she called for a police supervisor to intervene, but the confrontation continued to escalate after the supervisor arrived on the scene.

"They started yelling at him, 'Do you know what you did wrong, son?"' Dinkins said. "He was so scared he ran upstairs."

Police confiscated the dirt bike and placed her son under arrest.

At the station, young Gerard was handcuffed to a bench and interrogated, before he was released to the custody of his parents, his mother said. Hamm could not confirm that the child was fingerprinted and photographed. He said that would not have been normal procedure in a non-felony case.

The zero-tolerance arrest policy of former Mayor Martin O'Malley, now Maryland's governor, has become a contentious issue in Baltimore, with State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy, some judges and civil rights activists complaining such arrests occur most often in poor, black neighborhoods.

Dixon said Friday that the arrest isn't reflective of her philosophy on policing, and Hamm agreed.

Dinkins said the incident has scarred her son. "This has changed his life," she said. "He'll never be the same."

[corey294]

cops are ******** and need to get a life. do your real job and stop being scared to protect where you live because dirtbikers aren't hurting nobody. let us ride and go after drug dealers and gangs u idiots!!!!!

[JDAD2]

HOW IS EVERYONE CHOOSING TO MAKE THIS BLACK& WHITE??
GET REAL PEOPLE. A BABY WAS MANHANDLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MAYHAP YOUR PERSONAL {& OUTDATED)ARE NOT THE PROBLEM HERE.

[agnim]

"(BTW what color were the Officers?).
Posted by ToolMangler at 07:42 PM : Mar 18, 2007"

I haven't a clue the pigmentation of the US government thug.
However, you can bet your bottom dollar that he was working on behalf of the 'system', the racist system that is ALWAYS overeager to rob personal freedom and enslave young African men, especially, in America's prisons to this day. LOL

[agnim]

"If you want to see true suffering or what slavery is like today, go see the slave traders who are selling women and children in the s e x slave trade today or those who are starving, beaten, abused, raped, and more all over the world.

Posted by me4prezz at 04:54 PM : Mar 18, 2007"

Good point!

Now if Americans the most powerful and most influential people on the planet could evolve to the stage where they could acknowledge, regret, repent and recompense their centuries of slavery, do you know that would go a long way to send the signal that SLAVERY IS NOT OK TODAY?

But because mighty America can't even admit the egregious wrong done over the centuries in stealing people's lives, liberties, blood, sweat, tears, and futures for descendants, the POWERFUL US CONTINUES TO SET THE BAD EXAMPLE FOR THE SLAVERS OF TODAY!

Reminds us of the Nazis and the bigots of South Africa using America's racist policies as a template for their fiendish acts inhumanities.

America needs to LEAD, and those unfortunate women and children won't dare be taken by the beasts among us who prey on the weak! OK?
Stop defending rubbish; because in doing so, we mighty Americans become responsible for promoting the evils to this day!

[toolmangler-2009]

Agnim,I apologize to you for the obvious diservice done to your family by some of my ancestors (none of whom held African slaves) It is quite clear that my people should have fought harder angainst the invaders instead of trying to let them live peacefully among us. If we had killed each one that reached our shore the instant they touched land, your people would have been spared the hardship of growing up in The U.S.A. and we wouldn't be inundated by your racist, bigoted, hateful vitriol that has absolutely nothing to do with a kid being snatched off a dirtbike by the police (BTW what color were the Officers?).

[me4prezz]

Agnim-

Read the whole post and stop picking and choosing whatever it is you feel like. As I recall, in my post, I put that they WERE WORKING THE FIELDS SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE SLAVES AND THAT FREED SLAVES ALSO OWNED SLAVES, A MUCH LARGER PERCENTAGE ACTUALLY THAN WERE WHITES.

Again, I ask, when were you ever kidnapped, drapped across countries and sold into slavery? You, personally, right now in today's society. Do you even have ancestors that were slaves? I sincerely doubt it.

My family survived the horrors of the Scotland wars, several died in the holocaust, and more are now fighting across seas while I work at a hospital to help people who need it. What is it that you do that makes you so intellectually superior to all in your own feeble mind?! If you want to see true suffering or what slavery is like today, go see the slave traders who are selling women and children in the s e x slave trade today or those who are starving, beaten, abused, raped, and more all over the world. Sit at your computer, pull your foot out of your mouth and your head out of your arse and get a life!

[mo005]

Agnim : You are an idiot read your own lines and you will see you are arguing with yourself. What a putz

[agnim]

"That is not to say slavery was not wrong, but the comments that slave owners were routinely harsh and mean and did nothing is wrong. They needed workers to work the fields.

Posted by me4prezz at 12:01 AM : Mar 18, 2007"

That position of yours that you so nonchalantly expressed is held by majority of Americans.

Once you agree that slavery was wrong (robbing people of their FREEDOM), THERE CAN BE NO BUT, 'cept if one is with the racists!

If those enslavers needed workers, why the hell don't you recognize that they should get off their lazy arses and go do their dam work themselves?

And to compare the enslaved African people in America with migrant workers is another expression of racism.
Africans were KIDNAPPED UNPROVOKED and dragged across seas.

Your migrant workers VOLUNTEERED to leave their countries! Those migrant workers wanted to come to America and risk abuse.

The African HAD NO such interest, to leave a nice continent and nice climate to go to America and live like Inuits in shocking cold climate!

You are speaking from both sides of your mouth with that forked tongue. You are deceptively suggesting that slavery was wrong; yet you are intent on hedging.
That shows a lack of integrity, a lack of virtue, which of course is no surprise because it is that kind of vacillation that keeps American racism alive and well after hundreds of years. LOL

[me4prezz]

I stated my family came from Scotland 3 generations ago. I was born in Tennessee thank you very much.

For one so good at throwing around words, why don't you ever answer any questions on your own heritage? Afraid of being seen as the hypocrical liar you are?

Here are some facts for you:
In 1860, there were 27 million whites in this country. Of those, only 8 million lived slave-holding states. Of those, only 385,000 owned slaves and not all of them white. If you were to say they were all white, that would be only 1.4% of the total population. So, yes, a SMALL percentage.

However, there were NOT all whites. Freed slaves also KEPT SLAVES! In 1830, 1/4 of all freed slave masters owned 10+ slaves and 8 owned 30 . June 1, 1860, 4.5 million blacks in US. 261,988 were not slaves. In New Orleans alone, there were 10,689 freed slaves, of which 28% owned slaves compared to 1.4% of whites.

Finally, those that did own slaves, the majority, yes, that is right, the MAJORITY, worked, ate, and slept side-by-side with the slaves in working the fields and were not harsh. That is not to say slavery was not wrong, but the comments that slave owners were routinely harsh and mean and did nothing is wrong. They needed workers to work the fields. Is that much different than the migrant workers who work in the fields today under terrible conditions for a few cents an hour?

Need more examples? I got plenty.

[agnim]

"Hey wait a minute. I am asian we were here first,and for your information we also have the rights to the word karma.
Posted by sshard at 11:46 PM : Mar 17, 2007"

Are you posting from Asia?
For you certainly can simultaneously be 'here' in America first and be Asian! LOL