After 7-year-old Gerard Mungo Jr. was pulled off his dirt bike and placed in handcuffs, the police officer who cuffed him to a bench at a Baltimore City police station gave the child a simple explanation for his ordeal, according to a lawsuit to be filed by his family today.

The officer said, “If it weren?t for your mother calling my boss, you wouldn?t have went to jail,” alleges the lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages for false imprisonment, false arrest, battery and assault.