Video: Police take down, arrest unsupervised teen at neighborhood pool

CHARLOTTE — A video shows police arresting a teenager at a pool at Cambridge Commons in east Charlotte.

Channel 9′s Glenn Counts went to the neighborhood and spoke with witnesses who said a dispute led to the arrest.

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However, some neighbors questioned whether police should have been called in the first place.

“I was just trying to go swimming with my family,” said Shantique Strumn, a swimmer.

Strumn said she saw Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers take a teenager to the ground and arresting him.

“They were just telling the boy, ‘Calm down. Stop resisting,’” Strum said.

Strumn got to the pool after officers arrived, so she didn’t see the confrontation from start to finish.

A woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said a group of underaged kids got into the pool.

A family member of the HOA president said that because there is no lifeguard, the rules are that anybody under 18 must be accompanied by someone who is over 18.

The woman told Counts the kids were asked to leave and they allegedly refused and so someone called the cops.

Strumn said, “The boy had calmed down, and as shown in the video. He wasn’t resisting anymore when an officer decided to slam him down on the ground.”

Channel 9 asked the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department about the incident.

The police department responded: “On July 27, we received a call for a disturbance at Cambridge Commons Drive. During these types of calls, we seek collaboration from all parties involved. Our goal is always to achieve a peaceful resolution in every situation.”

The woman who was a witness said that the police talked to the teens for 20 minutes. Officers said they warned the kid who allegedly refused to get out of the pool that he would be arrested. She also said that he refused to comply with the officers’ demands that he put his hands behind his back. And in the video, his hands are facing forward before he’s taken to the ground.

“I believe it started because of a race issue that went further,” Strumn said. “I don’t think that the cops per-se were looking at it as a race issue. It was a big group of people. They didn’t know what to do. They focused on one person, and it got too far.”

Several adults told Channel 9 that the kid who was arrested lives in the neighborhood and would have had the right to use the pool if the chaperone policy was followed.

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