MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- A community leader is praising the new Chief of the Murfreesboro Police Department for the way he handled the recent arrests of several grade school children, but not everyone is pleased with the way the incident was managed.
On April 15, MPD officers arrested ten children ranging from 9 to 12 years of age. Four of the children were arrested at Hobgood Elementary during the school day, two were handcuffed.
The children were arrested using an obscure law for failing to intervene in a bullying incident that occurred off-campus weeks earlier.
An April 25 editorial in Law Officer magazine chastises Police Chief Karl Durr for apologizing to a gathering of parents and community members for the arrests the day after the children were taken into custody.
Travis Yates is Editor in Chief of the publication. Under a headline that reads “Chief Apology is What’s Wrong with America” Yates writes that Chief Durr should have waited until after an internal review of the arrests was conducted before deciding whether to apologize.
Yates goes on to write that “If children don’t want to be handcuffed, they should not commit crimes.”
“I don’t think the Chief knew one way or the other at the time he made this apology whether it was right or whether it was wrong and time is on our side. Let’s see what the investigation says. Let’s see what actually happened. …If we’re wrong we gotta own that, but if we’re not wrong, we need to defend those officers that wear the badge.”
One of the community leaders who was present for Chief Durr’s apology sees it very differently. James McCarroll is Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. He says typically a police department’s first instinct is to protect its reputation at all costs. McCarroll says Durr took a different approach.
“A relatively innovative and bold step to say “Hey, we were wrong.” Because what it does, it admits that the police are not perfect in their process.”
McCarroll says the community’s anger over the arrests could have spiraled out of control as it has in other cities in recent years. He says Chief Durr gets some of the credit for insuring that didn’t happen in Murfreesboro.
“We took a very civil approach and really said, “OK, before we go out into the streets let’s sit at the table and have a conversation." And I think you just had the right leaders in the right places at the right time.”
On Thursday, the Rutherford County District Attorney announced that the charges against all ten children will be dismissed. The Murfreesboro Police Department initiated an internal review of the arrests and plans to make a number of procedural changes as a result.
Chief Durr declined to comment for this story.
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