What began as a simple field trip to a Detroit courthouse ended in a Black girl being forced into a jail uniform and handcuffed. Why? The judge’s reasoning ain’t adding up for some folks.
The Greening of Detroit, a local nonprofit, took a group of students on a field trip as part of their three-week summer program, per WXYZ. Tuesday, the agenda was to visit the 36th District Court to watch a trial and have the chance to speak to the judge, Kenneth King. Before each side of the pending case entered the courtroom, King took time to answer some of the students’ questions, per a court recording.
However, during the Q&A, King pointed out a 16-year-old girl who appeared to be dozing off to sleep in the spectating bench. In response, he’s heard in the video telling her if she fell asleep once more time in his courtroom, he would “put her in the back.” King then said the teen gave him “an attitude,” with no specification as to what she said. Whatever it was, it set him off.
“One thing you’ll learn about my courtroom is that I am not a toy. I’m not to be played with,” he says to the teen in the recording.
In the video, King ordered the girl to change into a jail uniform, be handcuffed, and sit in the detainment area. He then threatened to send the girl to do real jail time at a juvenile detention center. “I’m gonna go to sleep tonight while you’re sitting in the juvenile detention facility,” he said. King followed this stunt with having the teen’s peers vote as to whether she should be sent to the detention center.
Ultimately, he took his proverbial foot off her neck, but the whole situation left some wondering if that whole thing was necessary. Online users, specifically, dragged King for being nasty and inappropriate toward the teen.
“Poor girl, you never know what she’s dealing with at home or why she’s so tired. His actions are inexcusable,” wrote one X user.
“This isn’t teaching her courtroom etiquette by having her peers vote to jail her if ANYTHING this has destroyed relationships. If anything it has reinforced a lot of the negative attitudes people in Detroit and other cities have about the court system,” wrote another.
When asked about the criticism, King insisted the incident was a teaching lesson, describing it as his own version of the 2010s television show “Beyond Scared Straight.”
“I wanted to get through to her, show how serious this is and how you are to conduct yourself inside of a courtroom. That’s not something that normally happens. But I felt compelled to do it because I didn’t like the child’s attitude. I haven’t been disrespected like that in a very long time,” he said. “… I’ll do whatever it needs to be done to reach these kids and make sure that they don’t end up in front of me.”
The organization who hosted the trip called King’s conduct “unacceptable” in a statement provided to WXYZ, and that King should have asked them to leave the courtroom instead. They added that after speaking to the girl’s family, that they learned she was “traumatized by the Judge’s unnecessary disciplinary treatment and scolding.”