Parents of detained children want apology from Maplewood Police

Mother demanding apology from police
Toshira Garraway (center) speaks at a news conference outside the Maplewood Community Center on Wednesday.
Matt Sepic | MPR News

The parents of four children handcuffed and made to wait in squad cars this week say they want an apology from Maplewood police.

Police responding to a call about gunshots detained a 10-year-old, two 12-year-olds, and a 16-year-old Monday evening after a 911 caller reported seeing four kids on surveillance video at the time of the shots.

Speaking Tuesday, Maplewood Police Lieutenant Joe Steiner said officers acted professionally.

“We’re proud of their response and their work on this incident and released the children about 40 minutes after determining they were not involved,” he said.

But Toshira Garraway — a local activist and the mother of the teen — said police need to admit their mistake.

“You should be saying I’m sorry to us mothers instead of trying to justify it and say ‘oh we only had them for this amount of time.’ It doesn’t matter if you had them for five seconds. You put them in handcuffs and threw them in the back of a car,” she said.

Garraway says police only released her son after he called and she intervened.

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