Two Baton Rouge police officers are under investigation for taking an active role in disciplining a troubled youth.
The 2019 incident was caught on tape and prompted the attorney for the beaten teen to file a complaint with the department’s internal affairs department. A Baton Rouge TV station obtained the video, which begins with Officer Adam Rhodes questioning the 14-year-old about a drive-by shooting that occurred at the residence the previous night.
When Rhodes asked him what he knew, the teen brushed him off with a chuckle, clearly irritating the officer.
“Think you’re tough. Think you’re hard,” Rhodes tells the boy. “Go ahead and smirk. I’m not your mama, laugh all you f**king want to,” Rhodes said.
The video then cuts to a bedroom inside the house, where Rhodes is instructing the teen to “put your hands on the bed like I told you.” Officer Jermaine Javius grabs his legs and the mother proceeds to administer 40 belt whippings on his rear, stopping only because her arm was tired.
The question is who initiated the spanking. Police say the mother asked them for help in punishing the boy.
In a statement, Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse said, “The mother requested officers assist her to discipline her son. Officers did comply with her request and held the 14-year-old male down on a bed while the mother hit him on his rear with a belt.”
Morse said the officers were not disciplined because they did nothing wrong.
But Ryan Thompson, the attorney for the teen, now 19, said the officers goaded the boy’s mother into the spanking. On the video Rhodes can be heard asking the mom if she’s got a belt.
“Undo your belt. Let’s go in the house. I promise I’ll hold his arm while you tear that a** up. I ain’t kidding at all. Below the waist, don’t break the skin – that’s what the law says,’
But the punishment was not the officers’ top priority; their real motivation in aiding the spanking was motivating the boy to speak to them — they couldn’t beat him, but the mother could.
The officers not only restrain the boy, they mock him. One of the officers can be heard telling the teen to “take your licks.”
After the spankings, the teen’s mother admonishes him to tell the officers what he knows. At the end of the video the boy is shown sitting at a table seemingly ready to talk.
“In no situation do courts authorize officers to hold a 14-year-old child down — a victim — in the name of getting information,” Thompson said. “We’ve seen this before, where individuals are taken to a warehouse and they’re interrogated, beaten and tased all in the name of providing information. It’s the same for this individual. He’s the victim.”
Reaction on social media seemed to be running favorably toward the cops. One Instagram user commented ‘I think this is probably the most productive thing I’ve seen the police due in a longgggg time.”
Said another, “Give them cops a raise. It’s a lot of moms having trouble with their sons that would appreciate this.”
But not everyone was on board. One Instagram user admonished the other commenters for supporting the cops’ actions.
“whaaa the people in the comments saying this not wrong !!!” she said. “As a mother you protect your kid !! Not go against him w. two white guys & ALLOW the to hold him down !? Thats traumatizing asf !”
“He never forgetting this,” she continued. “Could’ve been handled so differently! Its a way around everything!”
