SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A mother and her 8-year-old son were mistakenly pulled over by Sacramento police officers, leaving them shaken. Shanice Stewart says she’s angry, hurt and left wondering if something like this will happen to them again.
The Sacramento Police Department says they mistook the 8-year-old as a suspect with warrants out for his arrest.
“I rolled down all my windows and then I just proceeded to listen to instructions,” the pregnant mother said. “I did instruct my son just ‘stay here, keep your seatbelt on, don't say anything.’ That's when I looked in my rearview mirror and I saw that they had guns pointed towards the car. That's when I started to get nervous, breakdown. I got scared."
They were pulled over on the Capital City Freeway Tuesday afternoon while heading to football practice.
A spokesperson for the Sacramento Police Department said officers were looking for a boy wanted on two felony warrants, including a warrant for gun possession. From a distance, they saw who they believed to be the suspect get into a car with "heavily tinted" windows. Because of the potential for a weapon to be involved, officers initiated a "high-risk" stop.
After Stewart and her son were stopped and the windows were rolled down, allowing officers to fully see her son, police say they realized he was not their suspect and ended the stop.
"We must acknowledge that a case of mistaken identity occurred, our officers provided explanation and an apology to the mother and her son," said a spokesperson for the department. "Our department has been in contact with the mother since the incident. We recognize the impact that police interactions can have on our community members."
Stewart says there's no way her son looks like a suspect.
"He's an 8-year-old. He's nothing but 3 feet, 10 inches. He's real small,” said Stewart. “He doesn't even come off as a violent kid, he plays football. He's doing well in school. He's a child."
She said officers tried to explain to her they were looking for a suspect and apologized. Stewart, at nine months pregnant, says it’s not enough and the damage has already been done.
"It really makes me scared for him as he gets older. I hope this doesn't impact him as he gets older, to where he doesn't know how to react if he gets pulled over in the future,” she said. “I'm hoping that he doesn't build anxiety growing up against this because that was a traumatic experience."
Stewart says she made sure to tell her son not all police are bad, but says her son isn’t comfortable around officers right now and may need counseling moving forward. She’s intending to file a formal complaint in the coming days.
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