CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY) — A mother of a 12-year-old in North Carolina says her son is traumatized after police handcuffed him and took him to jail.
The boy was charged with reckless driving while riding his bicycle last weekend in Charlotte.
A stranger recorded video of Prince Ervin handcuffed in the back of a CMPD car on Sunday. The video shows bystanders questioning officers about what was going on.
“What crime did he commit?” a man asked.
“Reckless driving,” an officer responded.
“Reckless driving on a bicycle,” the man said. “Did he hit a car?”
“Doesn’t have to hit a car,” the officer said.
Prince’s mom, Jasmine Ervin, says she picked her son up at the jail after a panicked call from one of his friends.
“Terrified, traumatized: that’s how he feels,” Jasmine Ervin said. “He shouldn’t have to [feel that].”
Prince says he was riding his bike with a group of more than 50 people of all ages.
He noticed a police car trailing them for a few blocks. Prince says the lights flipped on, and a chase began.
“He hit the back of my friend’s bike,” Prince said. “He tried to hit him off the bike basically. I was not going to stay there so they could do the same to me.”
Once alone, Prince said officers caught up to him when he blew a tire.
“When I was putting my hands behind my back, I was on the ground, so when they were picking me up, they were still manhandling me,” Prince said.
Jasmine Ervin says the experience has taken away her child’s innocence.
“You want to feel safe and protected,” she said. “This big man is chasing you with a car and you’re a little boy on a bike. What you think he going to do to you if he already hit one of your friends?”
Information on the case is limited because Prince is a minor, but Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police released a statement:
Officers acted to ensure the safety of the individual seen in the video, based on the circumstances at the time. The department’s Central Division regularly responds to reports of individuals riding bicycles in a manner that poses a danger to themselves or others on city roadways.
This arrest comes three years after the city cracked down on large groups of young bicycle riders, some of whom were accused of playing chicken with traffic and sometimes using violence against drivers.
Prince and his mother say Sunday’s incident was not related to any “gang,” and he was just out for a ride.
Prince hasn’t gotten his bike back, but in a remarkable act of kindness, the man who recorded the arrest bought Prince a new one.
Ervin and her son are both grateful.
“He’s a child,” Jasmine Ervin said. “He’s a little Black boy. He is mine, and he is somebody, and that’s what I want these people to know. They’re not going to do my son like that, because that’s not OK. He’s not an animal.”
CMPD says the case is an active investigation. Ervin says she spoke with CMPD’s Internal Affairs Department on Thursday.
