horselightning
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- Jul 14, 2013
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D.C. police handcuffed her 9-year-old son. Now she’s suing.
Niko Estep’s mother says D.C. police violated her son’s constitutional rights by using excessive force when handcuffing him in 2019, according to a lawsuit.Niko Estep loved Spider-Man, video games and climbing trees when a D.C. police officer was caught on video knocking the 9-year-old to the ground and handcuffing him on a spring night in 2019.
Footage of the incident was shared widely, prompting police and the D.C. attorney general’s office to restrict officers from handcuffing children under 12, except in situations deemed dangerous to the child or the public.
But a new lawsuit by Niko’s mother says the changes didn’t go far enough, and that stark racial disparities remain in the searches of Black children like Niko in the District. She is now asking for a jury trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and compensatory and punitive damages, alleging in the suit that the officers’ actions that day violated Niko’s constitutional rights when they detained and handcuffed him.
Niko was shot and killed last November in an unrelated incident when he was 14 years old, becoming one of 16 youth killed by gunfire in the city last year.
Niko’s mother, Autumn Drayton, who on Wednesday filed the suit over the handcuffing incident said in a statement she hopes to prevent another child from being treated the same way as her son. Three months after the incident and struggling with PTSD from his encounter, the complaint states, Niko was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward after attempting suicide.
“What happened to Niko never should have happened. Niko wasn’t a threat to any of those officers and their use of force was outrageous and unnecessary. The police are supposed to protect our community and instead they traumatized Niko,” Drayton said. “He never fully recovered from the incident, and he went from being an outgoing and social little boy to being distant and withdrawn and terrified of authority figures and the people who were supposed to keep him safe.”
Representatives for D.C. police referred questions about the suit to the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, which declined to comment. Four officers named in the complaint could not be reached Wednesday.
On April 22, 2019, Niko was leaning against a parked car in Northwest Washington, the suit says. When two D.C. police officers told him to move, he “made a disrespectful comment” and ran, according to the suit. Then, it claims, D.C. officer Joseph Lopez chased him.
A video shows an officer, identified as Lopez in the suit, yanking the boy’s jacket, before he falls onto the pavement. Lopez then drags Niko to the sidewalk and places handcuffs around his wrists as he cries. In the midst of his fear, Niko wet himself.
At the time, Niko spoke to Fox 5 DC, which first broadcast the video of the handcuffing, and described feeling “scared.”
“Because I was in handcuffs and I thought I was locked up,” he said. “It hurt.”
The suit details how this incident injured him physically and mentally. He was treated at Children’s National Hospital at the United Medical Center for contusions on his foot and arm, a knot on his forehead and abrasions on his back and wrists after the encounter, and ultimately diagnosed with acute PTSD and major depressive disorder. In July 2019, he attempted suicide and was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward.
It was not clear why Niko was detained, the complaint states. He was not accused of any crime and officers can be heard in a video asking him to tell them the name of his mother before eventually releasing him. The problematic detention of children was a pattern for D.C. police at the time, lawyers argue in the suit, and remains a problem. An ACLU of the District of Columbia report on D.C. police stops between July and December 2019 found that Black male youth were stopped at 12.5 times the rate of White male youth.
The suit details other incidents where D.C. police stopped and handcuffed youth. D.C. police were criticized in December 2018 after seven officers stopped and frisked three Black children in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. In February 2019, officers detained about 15 to 20 Black children outside of the Petworth Metro station, handcuffing at least two of them. Weeks before Niko was handcuffed, police handcuffed a 10-year-old in a case in which then-Attorney General Karl A. Racine later said the child was “totally innocent.”
Within two days of the exchange with Niko, Racine (D) called the incident “obviously concerning” and announced a review of police procedures, with acceptance from D.C. police and the mayor, focusing on how officers interact with children and comparing those guidelines with those from other departments around the country and recommending changes.
However, the suit alleges that this review — and the subsequent policy change — did not stop D.C. police from unnecessarily handcuffing children, specifically Black boys. In June 2024, the suit says, police handcuffed a disabled 8-year-old Black boy in Northeast Washington.
Once D.C. police began keeping records in 2019 to comply with the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act, a statute requiring officers to track every time they stop someone, the ACLU of D.C. report showed seven out of every eight minors stopped by D.C. police were Black.
Niko’s loved ones saw up close the lasting damage a negative experience with law enforcement can have on a young child.
Classmates who watched the video of the incident, including Niko crying and wetting himself during it, teased him, causing him to transfer schools at least four times. He became distrustful of adults, scared of police and “developed debilitating fear and anxiety” when he saw his mother, who worked as a uniformed law enforcement officer, according to the suit, which did not state where Drayton worked.
The suit claims that this incident amounts to a common law false arrest, common law battery and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. The officers’ actions, the suit alleges, violated Niko’s constitutional rights, including his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures and excessive force by law enforcement.
“Abuse of police power is unacceptable in any context, but it’s particularly egregious when we’re talking about kids who I think we all feel like we have a duty to protect and not only keep safe, but make them feel safe,” said Katie Ali, an attorney with Ali & Lockwood LLP, a D.C.-based law firm representing Drayton. “We should all want to live in a city, in a community where little kids can hang out with their family and their friends in public spaces without fear of something like this happening. ”
he got what he caused smarting on the police and refusing to comply . running like he was doing something wrong. and cops are not responsible for the who ever made video or bad parenting he got or others that tease him. just another case to get free money.
