A Michigan teenager spent 40 days in a detention center for breaking a car window – but the police had no evidence on which to jail him.
After classes ended on December 16, 2013 at East English Village High School, someone threw a snowball at a police car, which shattered the windshield. The police blamed Dominique Rondeau, then 16, and arrested him later that day, according to The Detroit Free Press.
The two officers who blamed Rondeau for the incident didn’t see Rondeau throw the snowball, nor could they identify who threw the snowball on security camera footage. At a bench trial before a judge dismissed the charges, however, both testified that Rondeau threw the snowball.
As a result, Rondeau spent 40 days in a juvenile detention facility. Now 18, Rondeau has filed a lawsuit against Detroit Public Schools and the two police officers who placed him in custody. The lawsuit names false arrest and malicious prosecution as its basis, and seeks a trial by jury, along with monetary damages.
Such examples of police conduct harm the sense of public trust between officers and the population they serve.
As Reason’s Robby Soave wrote, “Over-criminalization of petty offenses does not create trust between minority communities and the cops, and it does not transform troubled teens into model citizens: it makes them more dangerous, by taking away their incentive to behave themselves.”
