It was a parent's worst nightmare, and a major mistake by the Frisco Police Department in North Texas. On July 23, an Arkansas family visiting the Dallas area for a basketball tournament was pulled over by the police.
Frisco police believed they had found a stolen vehicle — as a result they shut down the busy highway, pulled their guns and ordered the family out of the car. But one of their officers made an error — entering the wrong state from the license plate into their computer system.
The mother in the vehicle posted about the incident online saying seeing her child in cuffs "hurt me to my core."
"It’s not okay. And I thank god that we were not physically injured, but we have suffered a lot of mental and emotional trauma from this. I've cried so much today I don't know if I have any more tears to cry. Every time I see the video of my baby, I just can't believe it. I feel like this is a very bad dream," Demi Janale said on TikTok.
Police in Aurora, Colorado made a similar mistake in 2021, handcuffing 4 minors and laying them on the pavement for what police believed was a stolen vehicle.
While the Aurora police chief ultimately apologized for the incident, the family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit and one of the officers involved was suspended.
In a statement, Frisco police apologized for the July incident and said it planned to run an "incident review."
For now, no lawsuit has been filed by the family involved.
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