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Editor’s note: This story contains details that some may find distressing.

A video of a Syracuse police officer physically restraining a young child and moving him into a police car was posted on Twitter on Monday morning at 11:01 a.m.

Three officers are present in the video — which syracuse.com reported was recorded Sunday — two of whom are speaking to the person recording the video. All three of the officers are white while the restrained 8-year-old child, who is crying throughout the video, is Black, according to syracuse.com.

“What is y’all doing?” the person recording the video, later confirmed by syracuse.com to be Kenneth Jackson, asked the officers.

“Guess, take a guess what I’m doing,” the officer said while physically restraining the child. The officer again asked Jackson what he thinks the cops are doing. Jackson responded that he did not know.

“Exactly, you don’t know. You don’t know,” the officer said back. A different officer approached the person recording and said the child was “stealing stuff.”

“What, he stole a bag of chips so y’all treat him like a whole cold-blooded f*cking killer?” Jackson said.

The officer asked him to “keep walking,” and said to Jackson, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Keep walking?” Jackson said. “I know what I just came up and seen,” Jackson said.

“Okay, what did you see?” the officer said.

“I see y’all snatching him off the bike like he a f*cking grown-ass man,” Jackson said.

Following this interaction, another child walked into the video and yelled toward the police car, “It wasn’t him!” Jackson, in the video, offered to pay for the bag of chips.

After being forcefully placed in the car by an officer, the child can be heard screaming in the video.

The Syracuse Police Department put out a statement Tuesday, acknowledging the video. The release wrote that there were multiple “juveniles accused of stealing from a store on the City’s northside.” The incident is being reviewed, the release said.

The child in the police car was brought home following the incident, according to the release. Once at the child’s home, the officers met with his father and no charges were filed, the release said. Anthony Weah, the child’s father, confirmed the interaction between himself and the officers to syracuse.com.

As of 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the original video has over three million views on Twitter.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh also released a statement on the incident on Tuesday night. The mayor wrote that he has seen body camera footage and handcuffs were not used on the child. Walsh also said the officer “knew the child from prior interactions and explained to him that he was being taken home.”

“What occurred demonstrates the continuing need for the City to provide support to our children and families and to invest in alternative response options to assist our officers,” Walsh wrote.

Weah told syracuse.com that he wants to file a complaint.

“Why would the police treat that child like that?” he asked.

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke on the video. “As a mother, that was a heart-wrenching video to witness,” Hochul said.

She added that she spoke with Walsh about the importance of building trust between the Syracuse community and its police.

This post will be updated with additional reporting.

Published on April 19, 2022 at 9:28 pm

Contact Kyle: kschouin@syr.edu | @Kyle_Chouinard