An incident that could have easily turned into another tragedy involving police and Black people was narrowly avoided. NBC News reports that police in Texas held a Black family at gunpoint all because an officer made a typo when entering the vehicle’s information.
The incident happened in Frisco, Texas on July 23. According to the Frisco Police Department, the incident reportedly started when police saw a black Dodge Charger with Arkansas plates leaving a hotel. Police ran the plates “due to recent burglaries and vehicle thefts in which Chargers are frequently stolen.”
A statement from the department read,“The officer then initiated a high-risk traffic stop on the Dallas North Tollway, which is standard procedure for stolen vehicles.” The mistake came when officers ran the vehicle’s plate. Instead of entering Arkansas, the officer entered the plate as being from Arizona. That’s when things escalated. Body camera footage shows officers with their guns drawn at the family, which consisted of a husband, wife, their son and their nephew which were identified as boys 12 and 13 years old.
The mother and her son exited the car while the father and nephew remained inside, according to the footage.
Body camera footage from another officer at the scene shows officers forcing one of the children to walk backwards from the car with his hands raised as at least one officer points a gun at him.
After exiting, the mother, who was driving the car tells the officer that she is from Little Rock, Arkansas, has always had that registration for that car, and has “never been in trouble a day in my life,” according to the footage from the officer who made the typo.
The mother also informs officers that there’s a gun locked in her glove compartment and that she’s licensed to carry a gun.
The mother then looks over towards her son, and asks, “Is he in cuffs? This is very traumatizing,” according to the video.
“Why is my baby in cuffs?” she wails. “What are y’all doing?”
“They’re just detaining him, it doesn’t mean anything,” the officer responds.
“No,” the woman yells, prompting the officer to tell her to “stop” four times.
After one of the officers walks away to check the computer, only then do they realize the error they made. On the footage, you can hear one officer asking the other if they ran the plate out of the right state. After they discover the mistake, they explain the error to the husband as if that makes the whole situation better. “I ran your tag, it came back, associated essentially with no vehicle. So I confirmed it with my dispatch — I’m like, ‘That’s weird,’” the officer is heard saying to the man.
Other footage shows another officer explaining to one of the boys, who’s crying about the mistake and apologizing to him. “We’re so sorry you had to go through that,” the officer says. The end of the video surprisingly shows the man and officer shaking hands.
A statement from Frisco Police Chief David Shilson explains that both the department and the officers involved will own up to what happened.
Our department will not hide from its mistakes. Instead, we will learn from them. The officer involved quickly accepted responsibility for what happened, which speaks to integrity. I’ve spoken with the family. I empathize with them and completely understand why they’re upset. I apologized on behalf of our department and assured them that we will hold ourselves accountable and provide transparency through the process.
The incident is still under review, according to a statement released by Frisco Police Department’s public information officer, adding that “any discipline related to it has yet to be determined.”