An Iowa cop lifted a 10-year-old boy into the air and wrapped an arm about his neck while trying to stuff him into the back of a patrol car in an apparent attempt to keep him from his father.
“Are you serious?” said the boy’s father, Patrick Kennedy, who was recording. “To a ten-year-old kid because he doesn’t want to leave the fucking swimming pool.”
Just as it looked as if the boy was going to be transported to jail, his grandmother pulls up in a Hummer and police release the boy to her. The father asks the cops for their badge numbers but before they could respond, the grandmother pipes in.
“No, you need to get away and not make it worse for everyone,” says the grandmother whom Kennedy identifies as Tammy Binkley on his Facebook page.
On the day of the incident, both sides of the family were spending time at a community pool in Jefferson and the mother’s side of the family wanted to leave the pool but the boy wanted to stay with his father.
The video starts out with the Jefferson police officers Jones and Cody Smith wrestling with the kid in an open field, trying to walk him to the patrol car.
Officer Jones struggles with the child for the first ten seconds of the video and decides to lift him up in the air and carry the child the rest of the way to the patrol car.
The child immediately cries for help telling the officer to let go of him.
It takes the officers another ten seconds to bring the child to the car. As the officer forces the child into the car, the officer wraps his arm around the boys neck.
“Really, wow you’re choking my son,” Patrick Kennedy tells the officers.
The boy’s grandmother, then pulls up and walks up to the scene and says the father is making it worse and that the kid is coming home with her. The officers later explain that she is the legal guardian.
“I understand you want to see your kid,” Jefferson police officer Cody Smith tells Kennedy.
“Listen listen, I am going to tell you the same thing I told her. It is a public place, that is why I can’t kick you out or anything like that. I understand those kids want to be around you. That’s why this is an ongoing issue.”
The officer advises Kennedy to go through the court system, but Kennedy states that he already is.
Smith goes on to tell Kennedy that their hands are tied and have to return the kid to the legal guardian.
If you listen closely at the 1:08 mark, you can hear a child’s voice from within the Hummer say “fuck the pigs!”
The incident stems from bitter custody battle over his three children.
Kennedy was willing to speak Photography Is Not A Crime.
Kennedy said that the custody battle has been going on for four years. Kennedy and his wife were going through a divorce while she was dealing with substance abuse and therefor gave the grandparents partial custody. Kennedy stated that there is no protective order or anything stating that he is not allowed to see his children.