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A Mississippi police officer has lost his job after arresting a 10-year-old boy earlier this month for urinating outside.
The Senatobia Police Department announced the decision Wednesday but did not disclose the name of the officer who was axed.
"This incident triggered an internal complaint and was investigated according to our procedures," Senatobia Police Chief Richard Chandler wrote of the August 10 arrest. "As a result of this investigation, one of our officers involved is no longer employed, and the others will be disciplined."
The boy's mother, Latonya Eason, posted a photo online of her son in the back seat of a squad car, which quickly went viral and sparked national outrage.
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Police arrested a 10-year-old boy on August 10 for peeing behind his mom's car in Senatobia, Mississippi. (Latonya Eason/Facebook)
"Treating that 10-year-old boy that way was horrendous, disgraceful and inhumane," Elizabeth Bryan wrote on Facebook.
"Oh, what a stupid cop," Martine Stonebridge chimed in.
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Eason said that she was stunned by the incident.
"Why would you arrest a 10-year-old? I started crying," she told Fox News Digital.
Eason was meeting with an attorney and was parked outside his office in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, when her son, who was waiting in the car, had to go to the bathroom.
A 10-year-old boy was detained in a cell at the Senatobia Police Department in Mississippi for peeing outside. The officer who made the arrest has since been fired, according to the police chief. (Google Maps)
As an officer drove by, the boy stepped out and peed behind the car. The officer pulled over and went into the attorney's office to tell Eason he'd caught the boy urinating in public.
Eason went outside and reprimanded her son. "I was like, ‘Son, why did you do that?’ He said, 'Mom, my sister said they don't have a bathroom there,' I was like, ‘You knew better, you should have come and asked me,’" Eason recalled of the exchange.
The officer told her she "handled it like a mom should" and to make sure he doesn’t do it again. But moments later four additional cops arrived. Another officer told Eason that his lieutenant told him he had to arrest her son.
One of the officers ordered her terrified boy to put his hands behind his back but another intervened. "He said, 'He's just a child, you don't have to do that,' and they put him in the back of the patrol car," Eason recalled. "I was speechless."
They took him to the police station and detained him in a cell for about an hour before releasing him with a referral to youth court, she said.
Senatobia Police Chief Richard Chandler announced on Facebook Wednesday the firing of an officer who arrested a 10-year-old boy for peeing outside. (Facebook)
"He was spooked, he was shaken, and he had been crying," Eason said. "It was traumatizing for him."
She said her son is now scared of the police. "This has been so hard for me as well as my child. I'm really drained from this whole situation," she added. "I just want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else's child."
A GoFundMe account for the boy and his family has raised $5,525.
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The page says that the arrest occurred while Eason was seeking guidance from a lawyer on how to enroll her children in school without a permanent address.
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