The mom of a 10-year-old boy who was held in a jail cell after peeing in public is now suing the city and the local police department for $2 million.
Quantavious Eason, who is now 11 years old, had been waiting for his mom to come back from an attorney's office when a police officer saw him relieving himself next to his mom's car in August 2023.
Quantavious was only in third grade at the time, but he was arrested and put into a squad car before being taken to the police station, according to his family's attorney, Carlos Moore.
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The 10-year-old was held in a jail cell for up to an hour, before being charged in youth court with being a child in need of supervision, Moore said.
Quantavious was sentenced to probation, meaning he was required to check in with a probation officer once a month for three months. He was also required to write a two-page report about Kobe Bryant.
In a news conference, Moore expressed belief that race had been a factor in how Quantavious, who is Black, was treated by the police.
“I'm 99.99 percent sure that had this been a young boy who happened to be white ... he would have never been arrested,” Moore said, per NBC News.
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Moore added that Quantavious and his mom, Latonya Eason, have 'suffered like no other ... for doing something so commonplace'.
The lawyer claimed there was no public restroom available at the attorney’s office, and said Quantavious did not expose himself, instead doing what any reasonable child would have done when he needed to relieve himself.
Latonya filed a lawsuit on Wednesday (February 21), in which she is named as the plaintiff and the defendants are named as the city of Senatobia, its police chief Richard Chandler, the arresting officer who is no longer with the force, and four officers who were not named.
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The lawsuit accuses the defendants of excessive force, intentional infliction of emotional distress, failure to train and supervise, false arrest and malicious prosecution.
In the same month Quantavious was arrested, Chandler released a statement on the police department’s Facebook page which stated: "Several of our officers were recently involved in an incident that involved a ten-year-old juvenile. The officer’s decisions violated our written policy and went against our prior training on how to deal with these situations."
The statement added that one of the officers involved was no longer employed at the department, and that the other would be disciplined.
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It also said the department would have mandatory juvenile training 'just as we do every year'.
Latonya's lawsuit seeks a jury trial.
UNILAD has contacted representatives for the City of Senatobia, the Senatobia Police Department and Chief Richard Chandler for comment.
Emily Brown