A TikTok video showing a 13-year-old Baltimore girl in handcuffs following a purported altercation with an older woman has elicited outrage from witnesses and viewers alike.
They wondered: Why was the 13-year-old Black girl handcuffed while the white woman she allegedly fought with was not?
“Are you serious?” one woman at the scene yelled to police. The video, shared nearly 1,400 times, was posted on Oct. 13.
About 10 Baltimore officers were present somewhere on the city’s waterfront. The girl is seen being questioned by several officers, arms behind her back, hands in cuffs, while, not more than 20 yards away, the older woman, unrestrained, can be seen talking casually with a cop amid catcalls from onlookers.
“She broke my thing,” the woman says to witnesses, angered by the disparity in treatment. She holds up a wallet with credit cards falling out, but it’s not clear what the girl broke.
The teen girl remains calm as she talks to police. One person in the crowd gets her attention, telling her not to talk to the officers until her mother arrives.
The girl continues to talk calmly with cops, and moments later, about six minutes into the video, one of them removes the handcuffs. The girl then can be seen making a phone call.
Baltimore police did not respond to a request for comment. It’s not clear exactly what transpired between the teen girl and the older woman and who instigated it.
One onlooker can be heard yelling towards the white woman, “You antagonized her. Why did you antagonize that kid?”
After about 10 minutes, the crowd begins to disperse. The man who shot the video — known on TikTok as CongoLarry — summarized what he had just witnessed.
“That’s what you call white privilege,” he said. “They put a 13-year-old in handcuffs, and the white woman jumped on her. They were both in an altercation. They put the 13-year-old Black girl in handcuffs and her, just standing there.”
It doesn’t appear any charges were filed. CongoLarry says on his page that the girl was turned over to her mother.
Police drew considerable criticism on TikTok for how they handled the incident.
“This angered me to my soul,” wrote one viewer. “Baltimore police department should be ashamed!!!” opined another. “Why are they talking to her without an adult. Why is this child in handcuffs,” asked another viewer.
According to Maryland law, police overstepped their bounds.
The Child Interrogation Protection Act, enacted in 2022, states no juvenile can be questioned by police without talking to an attorney first or until a parent or guardian has been notified.
Maryland prosecutors say the law has made it difficult for them to hold juveniles accountable and have lobbied legislators to overturn it.
