An Oklahoma community is enraged, a 6-year-old boy is traumatized and two police officers are under investigation after the cops slammed the child’s father to the ground and arrested him for simply going on a morning walk with his son.
But despite the outrage, the two cops involved have not been placed on leave while the investigation is underway.
The distressing incident occurred on July 4 in the city of Watonga just before 6 a.m. when John Sexton went on his regular morning walk with his son and was stopped by a pair of Watonga police officers, KOCO News 5 reported.
“I found it a little bit suspicious, you know? Just walking around,” one officer told Saxton after approaching father and son, according to bodycam footage obtained by the local ABC affiliate station.
“Walking around is suspicious?” Saxton replied, incredulously.
“I mean. technically not really but, I mean, it’s pretty early in the morning,” the cop shot back. “You’ve been walking around down here at 5:30 in the morning.”
“Yeah, we do that,” the dad told the officer.
“No, you’re not. Give me your ID,” the officer sharply demanded.
Saxton said he didn’t have his ID on him as he left it back at his house, and the situation quickly escalated.
The unnamed officer took Saxton out at the knees and slammed him to the ground before cuffing his hands behind his back, the bodycam footage shows.
Next to them, Saxton’s 6-year-old — who has autism — was seen wailing.
The dad is put into the back of the police cruiser, where he asked the officer what he’s being detained for, according to the video.
“We don’t know what you were doing! We can call it criminal activity,” the officer answered.
Saxton was eventually released without being charged but the arrest has left a permanent mark on his young son, he told KOCO 5.
“He’s been a cop for Halloween for the last two years. That’s what he’s been wanting to be when he grows up. That’s what he says, and now he’s scared of them,” Sexton said.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation probed whether the officers’ arrest and use of force were justified, while the two cops remained on the job.
The county sheriff is demanding that changes — as the Blaine County District Attorney takes up the investigation.
Blaine County Sheriff Travis Daugherty has publically called for the two officers involved in the disturbing arrest to be placed on leave from the Watonga Police Department while the investigation is ongoing.
His office as well as KOCO 5, which first published the bodycam footage, have received hundreds of phone calls from individuals troubled by what they watched in the clip.
“We’ve had over 200 phone calls this weekend. I can understand why they feel the way that they do, because hearing that child scream is one of the hardest things,” Daughtry said of the 6-year-old boy’s cries in the video.
He also said that one of the officers previously worked for his office and had a history of complaints, including from coworkers, which led Daughtry to demote him and remove him from working with the public.
“The deputies that were underneath him, they had lost faith in him as their leader. Yeah, and so I demoted him back later,” Daugherty told the local station.
The former sheriff’s deputy quit and eventually got a new position at the Watonga Police Department.
The City of Watonga and its police department have refused to answer questions about the July 4 incident.
“As part of our commitment to integrity, we take any allegations seriously and are committed to transparency and accountability in our operations,” city officials said in a statement.
“Until the investigation is complete, and while following state law related to personnel matters, we will refrain from providing additional comments to preserve the integrity of the process”
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reportedly completed its probe into Sexton’s arrest, but would not release its findings, KOCO 5 reported Tuesday.