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Juvenile Justice

Mother of boy arrested at age 10 for public urination won’t sign probation agreement

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 21, 2023, 12:14 pm CST

The mother of a 10-year-old boy arrested in Mississippi for urinating in public won’t be signing the probation agreement, according to the family’s lawyer.

Lawyer Carlos Moore said Tuesday the mother “cannot in good conscience accept a probation agreement that treats a 10-year-old child as a criminal,” the Associated Press reports.

“The terms proposed are not in the best interest of our client, and we will take all necessary steps to challenge them,” Moore said.

The agreement is similar to an adult probation agreement in that it bans the use of weapons and requires drug tests if the probation officer wants them, Moore said. The agreement also imposes an 8 p.m. curfew.

The child, who is Black, was arrested in Senatobia, Mississippi, on Aug. 10, when police saw him urinating by his mother’s car while she was in a lawyer’s office. Police put the youth in a squad car and held him in a jail cell, the mother has said. Police said he was not handcuffed.

The child was charged with being a minor in need of supervision. Moore said prosecutors threatened to upgrade the charge to disorderly conduct if the case went trial.

Judge Rusty Harlow, a Tate County, Mississippi, youth court judge, sentenced the child to write a two-page book report and to serve three months of probation. The boy was not declared delinquent or in need of supervision, Moore told CNN after the hearing.

Senatobia Police Chief Richard Chandler has said the officers violated their training on dealing with children, and one of them is no longer employed.