Cops tell kids, aged between 6 and 17, to lie on the ground, and handcuff them as they cry out in fear

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and four young girls were happy about their trip to a nail salon to spend a fun girls' day together. However as they were on their way to get pampered, they were stopped by the Aurora Police Department and in minutes, the four girls were made to layon hot asphalt with their faces down, crying out in fear.

Brittney Gilliam was taking her daughter and her nieces to the salon on August 2, 2020, when her car was stopped by the cops at around 10:55 am. The officers thought she was driving a stolen vehicle and they had Brittney handcuffed and placed in the back of their police cruiser while guns were drawn on the children, who were of the ages 6, 12, 14, and 17, as reported by The Denver Post.

The children were made to lie down on the ground and the video captured the terror they felt as they could be heard wailing in the footage.

The youngest child, who donned a pink crown, cried for her mother while another girl asked, "Can I hug my sister next to me?"

https://twitter.com/Joshuajered/status/1290093255174975489

The reason why Brittney's SUV was stopped was that it had the same number as that of a stolen motorcycle. However, if the officers had checked the states from where the license plates were issued, they would have found that the stolen motorcycle had Montana license plates while Brittney's were Colorado license plates.

After Brittney's car was mistakenly stopped by the police, she and the girls followed the orders that the cops gave them. Brittney asked the officers, over and over again, to check her license and registrations. However, the officers who were at least five in number, refused to do so and they even put handcuffs on the 12 and 17-year-old girls.

https://twitter.com/MarcD_1075/status/1290633226206183426

"I felt rage," Brittney said about helplessly watching the girls lie being made to lie on the ground for no fault of theirs. "I felt weak that I couldn’t protect my own kids from that happening to them. When you’re a parent, you have to answer every time your child calls, cries, gets a boo-boo. You have to be there to pick up the pieces all the time. Not being able to pick up the pieces — with the officers dehumanizing them, putting them through that traumatic experience — it’s heartbreaking."

Eventually, the police realized that they stopped the wrong vehicle but by then, the young girls were already given an experience they would find hard to forget.

Chief Vanessa Wilson of the Aurora Police Department reached out to the family and apologized for the incident that took place that day. "It was done wrong," she said. "That’s the bottom line."

Talking about the states of the license plates not being verified, Wilson added, "There was a mistake there. I would have expected that they should have followed training and verified that prior to the stop."

https://www.facebook.com/jessyblackbelt/posts/3675861882441901

She also said she wished that one of the officers would think, "Hmm, something’s wrong here — I’m not going to put this little kid on the ground." But "unfortunately that didn’t happen," Wilson said.

Brittney, who filed a complaint over the incident, said, "There’s no excuse why you didn’t handle it a different type of way. You could have even told them ‘step off to the side let me ask your mom or your auntie a few questions so we can get this cleared up.’ There was different ways to handle it," as quoted by The Denver Post.

The mother found it hard to accept the police department's apologies and said, according to The Denver Post, "If it was a white family, it never would have happened."

14-year-old Teriana Thomas, who is Brittney's niece and also one among the girls who was made to lie on the ground said, "It’s like they don’t care. Who am I going to call when my life is in danger?" as reported by NBC News.

While speaking to CBS Denver, Brittney said, "I want change. Better protocol, better procedures because the way you did it yesterday was not it. Those kids are not okay. They're never going to be okay. That was a traumatic experience. Would your kids be okay after that? Having a gun pulled on them and laid on the ground. Especially a 6-year-old," according to CBS News.

Through her attorney, Brittney will be filing a federal lawsuit against the Aurora Police Department.