An AP all-formats package uses data, documents and deep on-the-ground reporting to examine excessive police force against a largely unrecognized group of victims — children.
When San Francisco-based data reporter Camille Fassett obtained from a non-profit a national dataset on police use of force, she and Washington-based law enforcement team leader Colleen Long pored over the numbers. They wanted a new way into the thorny issue of police force, a well-trod topic since George Floyd’s murder. Then Helen Wieffering, a Washington-based investigative fellow, hit on something — the data included numerous instances of force used against teens and kids.
The three set off to take a deeper look, and the results were stunning: Data from 25 police departments showed some 3,000 cases over the past 11 years where police used force against children, some as young as 6. The trio then filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get the reports behind the incidents. They combed through thousands of records, checking with police to confirm the ages weren’t mistakes.
To put faces and voices to the numbers, AP talked to the parents and kids behind the data. The reporters spent months interviewing children, teens and adults — sensitive and difficult interviews with families still struggling with what happened. The team also secured police body camera footage that backed up the stories, and gave police time to respond to the claims.
Krystal Archie cries as she speaks with an AP reporter at her attorney’s office in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021. Archie’s three children were present when police, on two occasions just 11 weeks apart, kicked open her front door executing a warrant as they were searching for drug suspects. They found nothing.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
Krystal Archie poses with her three children, Jhaimarion, left, Telia, second from right, and Savannah on Chicago’s South Side, Sept. 26, 2021. The children were 7, 11 and 14 years old when police kicked open their front door on two occasions and ordered them to get down on the floor. The family has sued Chicago police, alleging false arrest, wanton conduct and emotional distress.
AP Photo / Teresa Crawford
Savannah, left, holds her daughter Chanel as she sits with her sister Telia, listening to their mother, Krystal Archie, during an interview with the AP in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021. Telia says that after police broke down the door to their home and ordered the family to the floor, she saw an officer pressing his foot into Savannah’s back.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
Krystal Archie holds her hand while speaking with an AP reporter at her attorney’s office in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
Krystal Archie poses for a portrait in Chicago, Sept. 26, 2021. Archie said her children “were told, demanded, to get down on the ground as if they were criminals. … They were questioned as if they were adults.”
AP Photo / Teresa Crawford
On Sept. 9, 2021, X'Zane Watts walks out of the alley in Charleston, W.Va., where he was chased in 2017 at age 15 by undercover officers who followed him into his home and pointed a gun at his head. Police said that he appeared to fit the description of a burglary suspect. The family settled with the city for an undisclosed sum.
AP Photo / Colleen Long
Roy, left, and his brother, Royal Smart, react as they listen to their mother, Domonique Wilson, speaking during an AP interview in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021. Royal remembers every detail of the moment he was handcuffed by police in South Chicago., including the panic as he was led into the cold outside of his house, arms raised, to face dozens of guns pointed at him by police. He was 8 years old.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
Royal Smart, 8, in blue at center, stands handcuffed by police in South Chicago, March 15, 2021, in a police body camera photo released by the Chicago Police Department. Police were looking for illegal weapons and found none. No one was arrested.
Chicago Police Department via AP
Royal Smart poses for a portrait in a Chicago park, Sept. 26, 2021. Smart still has nightmares about being handcuffed for nearly 30 minutes when he was 8 years old, alongside his mother and other adults. No one was arrested at his family's home on Chicago’s South Side when police wielding a warrant came looking for illegal weapons and found none.
AP Photo / Teresa Crawford
Domonique Wilson looks from her attorney’s office in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021. Wilson said her children, with memories of a police raid on the family’s home, still sleep with the lights on all night. They continue to try therapy but she said the incident still torments them.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
Royal Smart, right, and his brother Roy listen to their mother, Domonique Wilson, during an AP interview in Chicago, Sept. 23, 2021. Royal was 8 when police raided the family’s home and handcuffed him.
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh
As they reported, the team discussed how to create an all-formats package with visuals as powerful as the text. The video, raw and powerful, was produced by Serginho Roosblad, using footage the secured by the reporters, while Chicago visual journalists Nam Huh and Teresa Crawford delivered moving, revealing photos.
The result was a remarkable look at how Black and brown children are disproportionately affected by police force.
The deeply reported story had immediate impact with AP readers and customers. Long appeared on “Here & Now,” a radio collaboration between NPR and WBUR, and in an unusual move, the House Judiciary Committee voted to enter the entire AP package into the committee record during an oversight hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland.
For compelling work that explores a little-recognized aspect of police use of force, the team of Fassett, Long and Wieffering is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
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