The judge was proud of what she had helped build, despite some alarming numbers buried in state reports.Īmong cases referred to juvenile court, the statewide average for how often children were locked up was 5%. In Rutherford County, a juvenile court judge had been directing police on what she called “our process” for arresting children, and she appointed the jailer, who employed a “filter system” to determine which children to hold.
There, she waited for the kids to be brought to her. Instead of going to Hobgood, Templeton had spent the afternoon gathering the petitions, then heading to the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center, a two-tiered jail for children with dozens of surveillance cameras, 48 cells and 64 beds. Garrett even texted her - “How’s timing?” - but got no answer. She had also told Garrett there would be no handcuffs, that police would be discreet. She had assured the principal she would be there. He wanted nothing to do with it, so he complained of chest pains and went home, with no warning to his fill-in about what was in store.Īlso absent was the police officer who had investigated the video and instigated these arrests, Chrystal Templeton. The thought of arresting these children caused him such stress that he feared he might cry in front of them. A police officer regularly assigned to Hobgood, who knew the students and staff, had bailed that morning after learning about the planned arrests. The confusion at Hobgood - one officer saying this, another saying that - could be traced in part to absence. Stop, Tay-Tay.” She was a fourth grader at Hobgood. What was clear were the voices, including that of one girl trying to break up the fight, saying: “Stop, Tay-Tay. Officers were now rounding up kids, even though the department couldn’t identify a single one in the video, which was posted with a filter that made faces fuzzy.
The police in Murfreesboro, a fast-growing city about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, had secured juvenile petitions for 10 children in all who were accused of failing to stop the fight. They were here for the children who looked on. But they hadn’t come for the boys who threw punches. The police were at Hobgood because of that video. Screenshots from a heavily filtered video, originally posted to YouTube, showing a scuffle among small children that took place off school grounds. One kid insulted another kid’s mother, is what started it all. The scuffle took place off school grounds, after a game of pickup basketball. It showed two small boys, 5 and 6 years old, throwing feeble punches at a larger boy as he walked away, while other kids tagged along, some yelling. On this sunny Friday afternoon in spring, she wore her hair in pigtails.Ī few weeks before, a video had appeared on YouTube. There was a sixth grader, two fourth graders and a third grader. The names police had given the principal included four girls, now sitting in classrooms throughout the school. Garrett knew the police had been sent to arrest some children, although exactly which children, it would turn out, was unclear to everyone, even to these officers. Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever.
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