Author’s note: it took me three days to write this. I kept adding and deleting, trying to get it concise and cohesive, but there’s just too much going on here. Apologies in advance if it seems all over the place.
Before I begin, let me say something about my headline. I am aware that this particular incident occurred in 2016. It was featured in a recent article at ProPublica that is simply amazing. It’s easily the most captivating piece I’ve ever read, though I admit I’m biased. The school they refer to was one of mine, Hobgood Elementary. I was their school psychologist from 2016-2018. So reading about it, now, compared to what we were told at the time, it just hit differently. I’m going to try my best to narrate through this.
The ProPublica article talks through the events of that day better than I could. In short, several black children were rounded up, based on a single video recorded on a cell phone, used to interview parents under the assumption that the police just wanted to talk to them. Their crime was...observing a fight. Witnessing a fight, and not doing enough to stop it. Even though one of them clearly was saying, “stop,” over and over. The children who were fighting were not arrested or charged- they were eight or nine years old, they hardly did any damage, just feebly waving at each other. But the juvenile judge in this county, who has been the one and only JV judge for 20+ years, likes to make an example out of children who make poor choices, in her mind. Particularly if they are black.
There were numerous problems with this single incident. The school’s School Resource Officer (SRO) was a really good guy who knew the kids and families. When he heard about what was going to happen, he called in sick. He couldn’t be insubordinate, but he wasn’t going to do it. The officer primarily responsible for the investigation wasn’t there, either. She was waiting at the detention center to see the looks on these frightened children’s faces, because that’s what she loves most in the world. Instead, they sent three officers who didn’t know what was going on, what the charges were, they just had a list of names. One, a white man and a member of the SWAT team, was in charge. The other two were both black men, one of whom called everybody he could think of to try and get this stopped, everybody he knew in positions of authority to reverse this decision, but no luck.
When it went down, it was a shitshow. Children were called to the office, and one by one they were handcuffed and marched to a squad car. The principal, who resisted every step of the way, was forbidden from calling the parents. The police wanted to make those calls from the detention center. One girl was momentarily overlooked, and it was approaching dismissal time, so cars were already out front when they remembered they had to nab her, too. So everybody saw it, a fourth grade girl being led away in handcuffs. Another girl, the youngest, 8 years old, was driven to the detention center and brought inside before they realized they didn’t actually have a petition for her arrest. They had to call her parents to pick her up. “Our bad.” The only reason they are allowed to hold juveniles overnight is if they are considered an imminent threat. None of these children had done anything remotely threatening, not ever...and yet, all the girls were allowed to go home, while four boys had to stay.
Because black boys are an imminent threat.
What we were told at school is that they were arrested for being involved in a fight, and that it was probably gang related. All of that was a lie. The fight started because one small boy talked about another small boy’s mother. Older boys said they should fight. Older boys should not have said they should fight. But there were no gangs. There was not even a crime.
The police had to dig through codes, policies, and regulations to find something to charge them with. They wound up charging them with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another.” That is not a charge. It is a basis by which to charge someone. Just like “conspiracy” by itself isn’t a charge, but “conspiracy to commit murder” would be. If the young boys had been robbing a bank and the others were recording it and cheering them on, that could be criminal responsibility for conduct of another. But if you’ve never seen two small children fight, let me assure you, there is no crime in posturing and yelling at each other. It’s actually kind of cute, for a minute. But to Officer Templeton and Judge Davenport, it was apparently criminal...even though, as I’ve mentioned, the fighters were not charged with anything, which should immediately blow up the whole case, but since it’s black children, there’s no oversight. They were arrested and detained anyway.
Now, let me interrupt this dismal read for a bit of good news.
In 2017 a federal judge ordered Rutherford County to stop detaining juveniles for minor infractions.
This past September, approximately 1450 juveniles who were illegally detained were awarded $11 million as part of a class action lawsuit. They only have until Oct 29 to claim, which is absurd, but it’s still something.
Now, back to the bad news.
Judge Davenport is still Judge Davenport. She’s still imposing heavy sentences, she just has to make sure the kids have actually broken a law. One of my old neighbors was sentenced to 45 days in juvenile detention for...truancy. She’s very proud of the good work that she is doing, correcting the children that should have been corrected by their parents, establishing law and order in an age of video games and sagging pants. She said so herself.
Davenport describes her work as a calling. “I’m here on a mission. It’s not a job. It’s God’s mission,” she told a local newspaper.
She’s still separating families because she doesn’t like them. She has run unopposed for years. We need to fix that.
Rutherford County still has a 48% incarceration rate for juveniles brought to court. The state average is 5%. We need to fix that.
Officer Templeton is still Officer Templeton retired in 2019 and collects a full pension. She was suspended for three days for arresting 10 children on charges that don’t exist, for lying to parents to make it happen, for lying to school staff, and for failing to heed advice given to her during the investigation. Her supervisor was also suspended for one day for failure to supervise. The officer who called in sick to stay out of it was also suspended for one day for abusing sick leave.
On a more personal note, I have always felt that the presence of officers in public schools has always been...unnecessary at best. There may be some schools that need one full time. For the most part, schools don’t need them at all. I am not aware of a single incident in which an SRO officer prevented a school shooting. And yet, by law, all schools in Tennessee must have a full time officer. Nurse? No. School psychologist? Ha! School counselor? I mean, there are recommendations...but, still no. Most of the officers I have worked with a great people, but they are not great resources to have in a school, particularly elementary schools where I have worked for 15 years. The ones I work with now do lunch duty, supervise arrival and dismissal, direct traffic, occasionally get called to “help” with behavior...pretty much anything an EA would be tasked to do. It’s not worth it. We need to fix that, too.
