TOTALLY GEEKED!

A Bronx mother of two who wanted to teach her young child a lesson about not stealing called the police hoping they’d take some time to swing by and talk to her kids about breaking the law. While she certainly wouldn’t be the first parent to try this approach, an enraged officer managed to miss the point entirely and instead destroy a family. Sadly, the only lesson the kids learned was one that the NYPD has been trying (and often failing) to change: If you’re poor and black, don’t call the cops.

After Tyeesha Mobley noticed that her 9-year-old son had taken $10 out of her purse, she phoned the police and asked that an officer come by and explain why stealing was wrong. According to Mobley, the station sent four officers to meet her. By all accounts the meeting started off cordial. Three of the officers joked with the boys.

According to DNA Info:

Initially, the interaction with officers was light-hearted, according to a transcript of Mobley’s account during a October 2014 preliminary hearing with the city over her then-plans to sue the city.

“They started asking Tyleke what did he take,” Mobley said at the hearing. “He told them. And about three officers was joking around with him, telling him, ‘You can’t be stealing, you’ll wind up going in the police car.’”

Unfortunately, a fourth officer grew increasingly upset, leading into a racist rant against Mobley that only escalated with every minute. According to Mobley’s lawyer, the officer yelled:

“You black b—-es don’t know how to take care of your kids … you need to call the kids’ father, not us … we can’t raise your kids … why are you wasting our time, we aren’t here to raise your kid … why don’t you take your f—ing kid and leave?”

Sadly, stereotypes abound. Rather than viewing Mobley as a person, the officer labels her a bad mother and assumes the kids must have an absent father. Making matters worse, his anger had reached such a zenith that he decided he would arrest her for… something?

DNA Info:

The officer then handcuffed her, threw her against a squad car and kicked her legs, she recalled.

“All I was saying is, ‘Please stop, you’re hurting me, my kids is there,’” she said.

She added that her children were crying, saying, “Stop, you’re hurting mommy.”

The officer’s actions even prompted a female colleague in a squad car to roll down her window and tell him, “We are not supposed to act like this,” the lawsuit says.

But the arresting officer responded to his female colleague by saying, “Black b—-es like that … this is how I treat them,” according to the suit.

Again, the racism is palpable. In the wake of the arrest, which left Mobley battered, she also had her kids taken from her for four months. Based on no evidence outside of the racist officer’s head, she was charged with child endangerment. For the “crime” of wanting her kids to learn not to steal.

Needless to say, a judge took one look at the case and dismissed it out of hand. Now, Mobley has filed a lawsuit against the NYPD for wrongful arrest and for the resulting psychological damage done to her children while they were separated from their mother. America’s biggest law enforcement outfit is used to it. In the past five years, the department has been forced to pay nearly half a billion dollars in settlements.

It’s unclear whether Mobley’s children ever got the message about not stealing, but they probably have an understandable fear of police now