Unlawful Arrest and Detention of 20 OKC Teenagers

I just read an article that all-out outraged me. Those of you who live in OKC probably heard that last weekend, 20 kids who had just come out of a movie were waiting to be picked up by their parents, and were arrested for violating curfew.

Now, let me establish something: OKC has a downtown area called Bricktown. It's a nice area, with the exception of bars and things. My family and I go down there a lot, mostly to go to the Harkin's Movie Theater there. Now, there is a rule where teenagers can't be out in Bricktown past 11 pm, with a little leeway time to wait for their rides. That's all well and good. Sadly, that was not the case this past Saturday.

You can read the full article here, but here's the jest of what it said: Some kids were outside the Harkin, waiting to be picked up by their parents, and it was a good TWENTY MINUTES before curfew.  They were approached by police officers, who asked them to give them their cellphones and get in a car they had. When they tried to explain, the officers wouldn't listen. Their parents were outraged and went to pick them up, but had to wait until SIX AM.

The number of kids arrested that night scares me. TWENTY. One or two they had just mistook might have been justifiable, but TWENTY?

The fact that the kids weren't listened to outraged me the most. The law says that if you can prove you had just been in a movie and were waiting for your parents, you were okay. But these officers didn't even ask for that information. They just arrested them. For doing absolutely nothing wrong. Imagine being a parent and getting THAT text. 

Something needs to take place in OKCPD. This can't happen again! I can only imagine me and a friend being caught up in something like this. That would be terrifying! Let's just hope that the proper action will be taken and I won't have to worry about that.