February 9, 2025
The footage confirmed the officers not taking additional motion to make sure the youngsters’ wellbeing.
The Atlanta Police Division has disciplined three officers after Bodycam footage revealed their lackluster effort to search out three kids allegedly kidnapped by their father.
The APD discovered the officers did little to rescue the youngsters whereas at their father’s residence for a welfare test. Based on Fox 5, the footage confirmed the officers rationalized their actions. They acknowledged that they might not do a lot to make sure the youngsters’s security contained in the residence.
One officer advised a lady who requested the welfare test that they might not enterprise into the house.
“With out a report on file, we are able to’t even go knock on that door like that,” mentioned one officer within the bodycam footage. “Even when, say, we knock on the door and the youngsters are in there, there’s nothing in any respect we are able to do.”
Nevertheless, their resolve to do nothing resulted in lethal penalties. 5 months later, one of many kids, four-year-old Treasure McWeay, died of hunger. Her father, Rodney McWeay, was charged for her killing.
Six months earlier than her dying, the Georgia’s Division of Household and Youngsters Providers eliminated Treasure and her siblings. The company positioned them with their mom, who fled to Maryland over alleged home abuse. Nevertheless, their father allegedly kidnapped the youngsters and took them again to the decrepit duplex unit the place stayed.
Resulting from their hesitant response, a sergeant and 4 officers contain acquired comparatively mild punishments for his or her inaction. They obtained both written reprimands or oral admonishments for his or her lack of additional investigation in a number of situations.
Arrest affidavits additionally revealed the youngsters lived in squalid situations. Locked in particular person rooms, the youngsters had surveillance cameras aimed. McWeay withheld entry to meals, water, and bogs.
Regardless of calls from the DFCS, the APD scarcely work with the company to make sure the youngsters’s wellbeing. The habits additionally violated protocol set by the division, a difficulty additionally taken up by Atlanta Metropolis Council members.
“I’m very dissatisfied within the response that clearly didn’t go far sufficient to avoid wasting these kids,” defined councilman Michael Julian Bond. “It’s disappointing to observe these bodycam movies to see the type of laissez-faire response to those specific calls.”
In response to the problem and Treasure’s passing, the APD had launched an overhaul on its dealing with of DCFS calls. Regardless of declining to touch upon the officer’s punishments, they offered an replace on this new coverage.
“On February 5, 2024, requires service requested by DFCS had been upgraded to a Precedence 2 name,” the assertion mentioned. “In 2024, officers responded to 147 DFCS-related requires service, with a mean response time of 35 minutes and 9 seconds from the time the decision was acquired to officers’ arrival on the scene.”
Nevertheless, metropolis officers like Bond stay essential of the police’s method to little one security considerations.
Bond added “Going ahead, there actually must be the message despatched to all responding officers that whenever you’re coping with the youngsters right here within the metropolis, you’ve actually obtained to push the restrict. You’ve obtained to push the envelope to guarantee that we’re utilizing each means out there to guarantee that these kids are protected.”
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