How young is too young to make an arrest? In 2019, Florida was met with that question after the violent arrest of then-6-year-old Kaia Rolle.
The first grader was handcuffed, had her mugshot taken during processing, and was charged with misdemeanor battery – all because she, a child, threw a tantrum!
Rolle was already suffering from sleep apnea, something understood by school staff as the cause of her tantrums. And after the trauma police inflicted on her, she’s suffering from even more: severe separation anxiety, PTSD, phobias, and “oppositional defiance disorder.”
“I watched her break,” her grandmother said of the disturbing body cam footage.
Rolle’s brush with the school-to-prison pipeline stuck with her family. And in 2021, her story led to a monumental reform, one that made her feel like a “superhero.”
The Kaia Rolle Act made it illegal to arrest children under seven … in most cases.
But now that Rolle is eight years old, she has a new anxiety – the law in her name can’t even protect her anymore! The reform wasn’t enough.
When Black children are adultified and criminalized for simply existing, the system of policing is not only dangerous for our present, but for our future.
Like Rolle's family, it is our responsibility to nurture children with kindness, and do the work to save them from violent systems that only intend to bring them harm.