Columbus, Georgia – A Georgia mother says she never wants her son to be in trouble with the law.
So, with the help of Columbus police officers, she showed him firsthand what it would feel like.
“Being disrespectful at any age to anyone now could get you killed,” says Chiquita Hill.
For the mother of three, calling the police to her Columbus home to teach her son a lesson wasn’t her first choice.
“We sat down, we talked about it, I asked him what’s going on? How are you feeling?”
She tells us her son Sean had been acting out in school – disrespecting his teacher and refusing to do school work.
Hill explains the behavior was going on for weeks and talking through it just wasn’t working.
“He’s going through the phase right now, it’s just in one ear out the other.”
That’s when she called these guys in hopes of scarring him straight.
She says she is scared that not obeying his teacher could escalate into disrespect for authority as an adult, something she believes could be life-threatening.
“I’m scared for when they get older, how bad is it going to be?”
Hill says when cops arrived they talked to her about what the arrest simulation would be like, making sure she was okay with everything. Then they entered the house, talked to Sean about his behavior, put cuffs on him, and then sat him in the back of a squad car for about five minutes.
Hill posted photos of the experience to her Facebook page and she’s received more than 3,500 likes, 1,000 shares, and hundreds of comments.
One commentator referenced the situation in Baltimore saying “I don’t like this, in a lot of cities police really do handcuff young children.”
But many showed support for Hill’s decision…”I had black cops arrest me when I was 15 and I love them for it, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
“I prefer to go from a positive,” says Child Psychologist Angela Sims.
We sat down with Doctor Sims, who says finding the cause of misbehavior is just as important as correcting the defiance.
(“If it’s a one-time occurrence you address the behavior and then you might just move on and there might be nothing else, but if it’s an ongoing kind of thing, and it’s happening more than a couple times, then yea you need to find out what’s going on.”
“It’s hard for a black male now,” says Hill, “And I just want him to grow up to be successful and to be respectful.”
