CLEARED

10-Year-Old Cuffed in Viral Video Was ‘Totally Innocent,’ Authorities Now Say

Footage of the young boy being shackled and put in the back of a squad car sparked outrage.

Video of a 10-year-old boy being handcuffed and put in the back of a police car after a robbery near Union Station in Washington, D.C., sparked outrage. Now, it turns out, the kid didn’t even do anything wrong. “We are now certain that there is no evidence that the 10-year-old boy played a role in the armed robbery,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said in a statement, according to the Washington Post. “He is totally innocent.” The child was picked up after a 12-year-old reported that he was robbed of his cellphone and beaten by another youth who brandished a pellet gun. Neighbors were horrified by the sight of police handcuffing such a young boy. His mother said he was “destroyed” by the episode. Racine got a court order to speak about the juvenile case so the public would know he had been cleared of any wrongdoing, the Post reported.