A 6-year-old girl sobbed as she begged police to let her go. Eventually, they restrained the child with zip ties. This heartbreaking moment was captured through a police body camera, showing Kaia Rolle getting arrested by an Orlando police officer for throwing a tantrum at school.
Officer Dennis Turner arrested Kaia, a first-grader at Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy in Orlando, on a battery charge back in September. At the time of the incident, Turner was working as a school resource officer (SRO) at Kaia’s school. He has since been fired.
In the footage, Turner approaches Kaia with zip ties. She begins to cry as he ties her hands together behind her back.
“I don’t want to go in the police car,” she cries.
“You don’t want to,” the officer says. “You have to.”
“No, please. No, please, give me a second chance,” Kaia sobs. “Please, please just let me go.”
Kaia was not the only student arrested that day on campus. Turner arrested another 6-year-old in a separate incident. According to the Orlando police department, he failed to follow a policy that required approval from a watch commander for the arrest of any children under 12.
In the arrest report, Turner wrote that Kaia attacked school employees with punches and kicks. When Turner leaves Kaia in the police car with another officer, he comes back into the school building where a staff member asks if restraints were necessary. In the video, he confirms his actions, saying, “If she was bigger, she would’ve been wearing regular handcuffs.”
He refers to previous arrests he had done, including a 7-year-old child he arrested for stealing from an Albertson’s grocery store. When the staff member tells him Kaia’s a 6-year-old, he claims she “broke the record.”
Kirkland described her granddaughter’s shocking arrest to WFLA. She said Kaia was handcuffed, fingerprinted, and forced to take mugshots before being released from custody.
In a statement released Tuesday, Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón confirmed Turner was fired and the department has taken steps to stop another incident like this from occurring. Kaia is now enrolled in a different school and meeting with a counselor weekly.