It might sound like a joke, but this outrageous event actually took place at Morrell Park Elementary School after a school fight. The officers from Baltimore Police Department arrested three 9-year-old girls and an 8-year-old boy on aggravated assault charges after a schoolyard fight that broke out 9 days prior to the arrest. What makes it so shocking is the fact the children were treated as adult suspects, and as soon they were taken out of the class and into the principal’s office, they were handcuffed and arrested.

In defense of their action, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that they handled the children as they would any felony suspect due to the fact that it was more than just a school kids brawl. Allegedly one of the kids threatened to kill one of their peers by forcing their head on the railroad track and the other held another kid’s head underwater, which made the school authorities ask police for help.

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The ACLU of Maryland reacted severely to this case, calling the whole thing “appalling”. ACLU’s attorney Sonia Kumar stated that “Even if it was appropriate to treat the fight between children as a criminal justice matter, there is no excuse for treating eight and nine year olds the same way we treat adult criminal suspects.”