By Matt Lakin
Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Deborah Lawhorn says she watched a Knoxville Police Department officer handcuff the 7-year-old boy she helped raise.
Now she wants to know why.
“You don’t put a set of handcuffs on a little boy who’s not even doing anything,” she said. “That’s not right.”
Knoxville police say they’re investigating Lawhorn’s complaint and reviewing video from the officer’s in-cruiser camera. Officials wouldn’t give the officer’s name or other details.
Lawhorn says the officer showed up Sunday at her Beaumont Avenue home in Northwest Knoxville after a call about some children fighting at a neighbor’s house.
“They called the police on my kids,” she said. “My boy wasn’t doing anything.”
Lawhorn says the officer stood the boy up against the fence in her back yard, cuffed his hands behind his back and sat him on the ground while questioning him and some other children. She estimates he was handcuffed about four minutes before the officer released him. He wasn’t hurt or charged.
“He was crying and yelling, ‘Mama,’ meaning me,” said Lawhorn, who said she’s had custody of the boy for the past few years. “I was over here, but I didn’t say anything. I was afraid of the officer myself. If he’s going to handcuff a 7-year-old, what’s he going to do to me?”
Lawhorn also says the officer cursed in front of the children before leaving. She said the boy won’t talk about the incident.
KPD policy doesn’t necessarily forbid handcuffing children but sets out basic requirements on profanity and dealing with the public, KPD Capt. Gary Holliday said.
“We’ll do a full internal investigation,” he said.
Copyright 2009 Knoxville News-Sentinel