Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

Niko Estep loved Spider-Man, video games and climbing trees when a D.C. police officer was caught on video knocking the 9-year-old to the ground and handcuffing him on a spring night in 2019.


Footage of the incident was shared widely, prompting police and the D.C. attorney general’s office to restrict officers from handcuffing children under 12, except in situations deemed dangerous to the child or the public.


But a new lawsuit by Niko’s mother says the changes didn’t go far enough, and that stark racial disparities remain in the searches of Black children like Niko in the District.

She is now asking for a jury trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and compensatory and punitive damages, alleging in the suit that the officers’ actions that day violated Niko’s constitutional rights when they detained and handcuffed him.

Niko was shot and killed last November in an unrelated incident when he was 14 years old, becoming one of 16 youth killed by gunfire in the city last year.

Niko’s mother, Autumn Drayton, who on Wednesday filed the suit over the handcuffing incident said in a statement she hopes to prevent another child from being treated the same way as her son.

Three months after the incident and struggling with PTSD from his encounter, the complaint states, Niko was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward after attempting suicide.


“What happened to Niko never should have happened. Niko wasn’t a threat to any of those officers and their use of force was outrageous and unnecessary. The police are supposed to protect our community and instead they traumatized Niko,” Drayton said.

“He never fully recovered from the incident, and he went from being an outgoing and social little boy to being distant and withdrawn and terrified of authority figures and the people who were supposed to keep him safe.”…….

On April 22, 2019, Niko was leaning against a parked car in Northwest Washington, the suit says. When two D.C. police officers told him to move, he “made a disrespectful comment” and ran, according to the suit. Then, it claims, D.C. officer Joseph Lopez chased him.

A video shows an officer, identified as Lopez in the suit, yanking the boy’s jacket, before he falls onto the pavement. Lopez then drags Niko to the sidewalk and places handcuffs around his wrists as he cries. In the midst of his fear, Niko wet himself.


At the time, Niko spoke to Fox 5 DC, which first broadcast the video of the handcuffing, and described feeling “scared.”


“Because I was in handcuffs and I thought I was locked up,” he said. “It hurt.”


The suit details how this incident injured him physically and mentally.

He was treated at Children’s National Hospital at the United Medical Center for contusions on his foot and arm, a knot on his forehead and abrasions on his back and wrists after the encounter, and ultimately diagnosed with acute PTSD and major depressive disorder.

In July 2019, he attempted suicide and was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward.


It was not clear why Niko was detained, the complaint states. He was not accused of any crime and officers can be heard in a video asking him to tell them the name of his mother before eventually releasing him.

The problematic detention of children was a pattern for D.C. police at the time, lawyers argue in the suit, and remains a problem.

An ACLU of the District of Columbia report on D.C. police stops between July and December 2019 found that Black male youth were stopped at 12.5 times the rate of White male youth……..



https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/10/23/dc-police-niko-estep-handcuff-boy-lawsuit/