Mississippi judge drops punishment of probation and book report for a child who urinated in public

SENATOBIA, Madam. — A 10-year-old Black child who urinated next to his mother’s car outside a Mississippi office building will no longer have to serve probation and write a book report on Kobe Bryant, an attorney for the child’s family said Monday.

Tate County Youth Court Judge Rusty Harlow imposed three months’ probation and the book report on the late NBA star as punishment in December. But the child’s mother said she would not agree to the terms because she feared the probation would treat her child like a criminal.

Harlow held another hearing Monday and rejected a Juvenile Court petition seeking to designate the child as someone in need of supervision — a decision that satisfied his mother, according to Carlos Moore, an attorney for the family.

Moore had said the probation agreement contained conditions similar to what prosecutors established for an adult, including a requirement to submit to drug testing at the discretion of a probation officer.

The child’s mother has said her son urinated behind her car while visiting a law office in Senatobia, Mississippi, on August 10. Police officers in the city of about 8,100 residents 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee, saw the child urinating and arrested him. Officers put him in a police car and took him to the police station.

Senatobia Police Chief Richard Chandler said the child was not handcuffed, but his mother said he was put in a jail cell.

Days after the episode, Chandler said the officers violated their training in dealing with children. He said one of the officers who took part in the arrest was “no longer employed” by the department, and that other officers would be disciplined.