Cops in Grand Rapids are under fire – and being investigated – after some of their officers pointed a gun at an 11-year-old Black girl and handcuffed her, all right in her own backyard. It all happened when the police claim they were conducting a search for a stabbing suspect. Honestie Hodges told Wood TV that she had exited the back door of her home to go to the store on Dec. 6 when officers confronted her. Her mom, Whitney Hodges, who witnessed the confrontation, said police ordered Honestie to raise her hands and walk backward. Then officers handcuffed the girl, patted her down and put her in the back of a police car, Hodges said. “It made me feel scared and it made me feel like I did something wrong,” Honestie told the TV station. “The whole time they are telling her to calm down, I’m telling them, ‘She’s 11 years old. That’s my daughter. Don’t cuff her,’” her mother said of the incident. Honestie said she sat in the back of the cruiser banging on the windows and screaming to her mom, “Please don’t let them take me.” Grand Rapids police, who have begun an internal investigation into their handling of the incident, said officers were at the Hodges home searching for the child’s aunt, Carrie Manning, 40, who is white. Manning, who was later arrested, was being sought in a domestic stabbing a few blocks away, and police said they suspected she was armed with a knife. Honestie said she remains shaken. “I’m afraid to open or go near my back door … because of what happened,” she told WOOD-TV. “I wanted to be a detective or police officer, but now I don’t want anything to do with those kind of things.” Police told the Huffington Post that the department can’t comment further until the internal investigation is complete.
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