An elected official in Washington is asking U.S. Park Police why teenagers were handcuffed for selling bottled water on the National Mall.

The arrests were made on Thursday. A witness took photos of three young black men being handcuffed by plainclothes police officers. U.S. Park Police say two of them were 16 and one was 17. The agency says in a statement that the teens were warned about vending without a permit and released without charges.

Democratic D.C. Council member Charles Allen wrote a letter to Park Police Chief Robert MacLean on Friday asking him to explain the agency's actions. In the letter, Allen notes the lack of charges and says he doesn't think the officers' actions were justified. He compares it to arresting kids for operating a lemonade stand.

"I can't help but think how the reaction by these same officers might have varied if different children had set up a quaint hand-painted lemonade stand on the same spot. While still the same violation of selling a beverage without proper permits and licences, I doubt we would have seen little girls in pigtails handcuffed on the ground," Council member Allen stated in part of the letter.

According to Park Police, when the suspects were asked if they had a vendor's permit to sell the water, the suspects said they did not. A vendor's permit is required to sell items on the National Mall.