Video of police interrogation of 8-yr old released
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The Apache County Attorney’s Office has released 12 minutes of the video of the interrogation of the 8-year old charged with murdering his father and his father’s friend.
It’s absolutely disgusting. There are two cops talking to this child, without the presence of a parent, guardian or lawyer.
They repeatedly ask him if he’s lying and whether he was home before he says he was. He steadfastly maintains his version of events and denies being involved. He even describes with some detail a car he saw driving away from the house.
Obviously, this is not the part of the video where he “confesses”. Just listen to the voice of the 8 year old boy. It’s disgusting that they’re doing this.
I am quite curious about the prosecutor’s motive in releasing this truncated video. Any thoughts on that? It seems like a PR ploy, but I can’t quite figure out their angle. Are they bowing to media pressure? Are they trying to show the public that this was a conniving young boy? Portray him as a liar?
Whatever their motives may be, the bottom line is that the police should not have interrogated him for hours without the presence of an adult.
Sometimes cops are too eager to “solve” a crime and do so at the expense of Constitutional rights. This also strikes me as a situation where they have blinders on and are now committed to their theory that the boy did it, while other legitimate avenues of investigation are going cold.
I would be rather surprised if a judge admits this confession at a trial – and if by some miracle it is admitted – I would be even more shocked if an appellate court permitted the conviction to stand.
A shame, really, that this kind of shit still goes on.
An AP report with some clips of the video is below; the full raw feed is at this link.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZ0AkqSILM[/youtube]
| Print article | This entry was posted by Gideon on November 18, 2008 at 8:39 pm, and is filed under juveniles, videotaped interrogations. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
I think my favorite part is where the nice-sounding lady cop says in her kindly voice, “We can’t lie to you. We’re just going to talk honestly. We won’t lie to you and you won’t lie to us, ok?”
Of course a trusting 8 year-old would have no idea that was all a lie! There is no part of this prosecution that I don’t find outrageous. Every cop and prosecutor involved should be ashamed of the way they have handled this situation.
about 1 year ago
Yeah, that was cute.
How does this even happen? How are there any cops out there who don’t know what you cannot (should not) interrogate a minor without a guardian present, or it will taint the entire interview and confession and render it unusable?
about 1 year ago
Is there consistent training for law enforcement on such issues?
about 1 year ago
And how do cops look at an 8 year-old and think, “He’s our perp. We’ve got to go Reid on him and get him to break.” If they do think he did it based on some evidence at the scene, how do they not immediately think, “Danger! Maybe we should proceed with extreme caution.”
Here’s my 4:00 and I get to go home soon question: they say he wasn’t in police custody so they didn’t have to mirandize him. Well, his custodial parent had just been killed, so in whose custody was he? Who had authority over this boy’s movements? Was there anyone not affiliated with the police or state child services department who could have overruled the decision to interview him and who could have lawfully removed him from the police station?
about 1 year ago
It’s Peter Reilly all over again….
On the other hand, it surely makes you appreciate being in Connecticut.
about 1 year ago
All I can say is, UNREAL. Yet, we know that some spineless judge will likely “punt” when it comes to deciding if the video and/or written confession gets into court – meaning, s/he will say, “Not me, let the upper level courts decide this question!”
about 1 year ago
it is SO SAD that i can totally believe this sh*t happens.
omg. omg.