Stumblebum Officer Chrystal Templeton
Disciplined 37 times, suspended 9 times, jailed 10 young black children for a non-existent crime
Black Children Were Jailed For A Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened To The Adults In Charge.
9 October 2021
Chapter 1: “What in the World?”
Three police officers were crowded into the assistant principal’s office at Hobgood Elementary School, and Tammy Garrett, the school’s principal, had no idea what to do. One officer, wearing a tactical vest, was telling her: Go get the kids. A second officer was telling her: Don’t go get the kids. The third officer wasn’t saying anything. 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. The names police had given the principal included four girls, now sitting in classrooms throughout the school. ...
Chapter 2: “The Mother of the County”:
Eleven children in all were arrested over the video, including the 8-year-old taken in by mistake. Media picked up the story. Parents and community leaders condemned the actions of police. “Unimaginable, unfathomable,” a Nashville pastor said. “Unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” “insane,” three state legislators said. But Rutherford County’s juvenile court judge focused instead on the state of youth, telling a local TV station: “We are in a crisis with our children in Rutherford County. … I’ve never seen it this bad.” Rutherford County established the position of elected juvenile court judge in 2000, and ever since, Donna Scott Davenport has been the ...
Chapter 3: “Yeah, That’s the Charge”
On the same Friday afternoon as three police officers jammed into the assistant principal’s office at Hobgood Elementary School, three other people huddled in another office a few miles away, to discuss what charge these kids could face. Chrystal Templeton, the police officer investigating the video, wanted to arrest every kid who watched the fight and “get them all in front” of Davenport, she would say later during an internal police investigation. Charging them was helping them, Templeton believed, because “juvenile court is about rehabilitation.” Templeton thought an appropriate charge might be conspiracy to commit assault. But then she met ...
Chapter 4: “We Will Hold the Juvenile”
When police took the 12-year-old twins to the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center on Saturday, April 16, 2016, the odds that either would be jailed were long, at least under Tennessee law. Recognizing the harm that can come from incarcerating kids, Tennessee lawmakers have placed narrow limits on when a child accused of being delinquent can be held in a secure lockdown prior to receiving a court hearing. The child must fit one of six categories, precisely defined. They include being a jail escapee; being wanted elsewhere for a felony offense; or being accused, on substantial evidence, of a crime ...
Chapter 5: “They’re Not Coming Out Better Than They Went In”
She had tried to stop the scuffle. The evidence was right there, in the video. Stop, Tay-Tay. Stop, Tay-Tay. Then, asked by police for help, she had helped. The police had responded by arresting her, as she vomited and cried, saying that she had “encouraged and caused” the fight. When E.J. was taken to the detention center, she was processed along with C.C., her best friend. Jail staff recorded E.J.’s name and birthdate (she was 10 years old), conducted a 16-point search and confiscated her jewelry, all her small rings. Then they placed the two fourth graders in a holding ...
Chapter 6: “There Were No Concerns”
In the immediate aftermath of the arrests at Hobgood Elementary, the Murfreesboro police chief promised an internal investigation. By year’s end, the department had finished its report. The officer who bailed before the arrests got a one-day suspension. So did the sergeant in charge of school resource officers. Three other supervisors also were disciplined: the sergeant, lieutenant and major who had not stepped in, even as Officer Williams called them from the assistant principal’s office, raising the alert. Each received a reprimand. As for Templeton, who had initiated the arrests, the department made one finding: Her work had been “unsatisfactory.” ...
Black Children Were Jailed For A Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened To The Adults In Charge.
This article was originally published in ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Friday, April 15, 2016: Hobgood Elementary School, Murfreesboro, Tennessee Three police officers…
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