The footage showed the officers not taking further action to ensure the kids’ wellbeing.
The Atlanta Police Department has disciplined three officers after Bodycam footage revealed their lackluster effort to find three children allegedly kidnapped by their father.
The APD found the officers did little to rescue the children while at their father’s home for a welfare check. According to Fox 5, the footage showed the officers rationalized their actions. They stated that they could not do much to ensure the children’s safety inside the residence.
One officer told a woman who requested the welfare check that they could not venture into the home.
“Without a report on file, we can’t even go knock on that door like that,” said one officer in the bodycam footage. “Even if, say, we knock on the door and the kids are in there, there’s nothing at all we can do.”
However, their resolve to do nothing resulted in deadly consequences. Five months later, one of the children, four-year-old Treasure McWeay, died of starvation. Her father, Rodney McWeay, was charged for her killing.
Six months before her death, the Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services removed Treasure and her siblings. The agency placed them with their mother, who fled to Maryland over alleged domestic abuse. However, their father allegedly kidnapped the children and took them back to the decrepit duplex unit where stayed.
Due to their hesitant response, a sergeant and four officers involve received relatively light punishments for their inaction. They obtained either written reprimands or oral admonishments for their lack of further investigation in multiple instances.
Arrest affidavits also revealed the children lived in squalid conditions. Locked in individual rooms, the children had surveillance cameras aimed. McWeay withheld access to food, water, and bathrooms.
Despite calls from the DFCS, the APD scarcely work with the agency to ensure the children’s wellbeing. The behavior also violated protocol set by the department, an issue also taken up by Atlanta City Council members.
“I’m very disappointed in the reaction that obviously didn’t go far enough to save those children,” explained councilman Michael Julian Bond. “It is disappointing to watch those bodycam videos to see the kind of laissez-faire response to these particular calls.”
In response to the issue and Treasure’s passing, the APD had launched an overhaul on its handling of DCFS calls. Despite declining to comment on the officer’s punishments, they provided an update on this new policy.
However, city officials like Bond remain critical of the police’s approach to child safety concerns.
Bond added “Going forward, there really needs to be the message sent to all responding officers that when you’re dealing with the children here in the city, you’ve really got to push the limit. You’ve got to push the envelope to make sure that we are using every means available to make sure that these children are safe.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
