Six year old arrested for picking flower

 

On March 24 tragedy struck when a 6-year-old boy was charged with vandalism and purposeful destruction of property when he picked a flower from the yard behind his bus stop. The child whose name will not be shared for legal and privacy purposes happened to be black. 

After picking the flower the owner of the home chose to contact the North Carolina police department and report the child for vandalism. What’s worse is the dispatcher dispatched a squad car and the police actually processed the arrest. 

This six-year-old, a kindergartener, was then taken to court and forced to sit through the proceedings. Meaning that a judge actually took the case seriously instead of dismissing charges against a six-year-old for picking a flower. Several eyewitness reports of the proceedings reported that the child was so fidgety and unable to focus on the trial that he had to be given a coloring book by his lawyer. 

Literally, a few weeks after the one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death, we are again reminded of how unjust the system is to people of color. The child is six, the age where all he knows is to share, care and be a good person, he has no malice in his body, and yet a white person decided a tulip is more important than this child’s future. 

He has no idea what property laws or vandalism even are and yet when he made the subconscious decision to innocently pluck a flower for someone in his life this is what he has to face. 

This is not OK and is the most basic way to describe the occurrences of this trial, No child should ever have to go through this especially not children of color who already are expected to know how to act like an adult before they can write their names. 

At the moments the proceedings of the trial are unclear but we need to acknowledge the following.

  1. No white kid would have been arrested.
  2. This is racism.
  3. This will damage the child’s psyche and development.
  4. The judicial system needs a reform.
  5. Black lives matter.

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