that makes sense so essentially you got the probable cause when you went to the door the first time and the father admitted to piercing the ear right because before that all it was was hearsay even if it is from a teacher um and so it was essentially the father speaking to the police when they came to the door the first time that gave you probable cause to make an arrest is that right many of you may have already seen this video that went viral this weekend on Tick Tock Twitter Tinder I I don't know a whole bunch of social media sites the video is alleged to show a man being arrested by Tontitown Arkansas police for allegedly piercing his son's ear at home without a license now there is more to the story than just this and there are a few news outlets that covered some of those other parts of the story but Keith Lindley with the Department was kind enough to spend about 25 minutes on the phone with me explaining the details of the situation and answering any questions that I had when I finished speaking with him I came to the conclusion that this man was arrested because of a mistake that he made and the reason I want to bring attention to this is to try to prevent you from making the same mistake Times Record reported that the arrest followed a complaint made on Thursday by a Springdale Public Schools Police resource officer the resource officer reported to Tontitown police that a juvenile male had shown up to school with his left ear pierced the officer said he overheard the boy say that his dad was drunk when he forcibly pierced his ear the Tontitown police statement said quote while sitting in class talking with other students and a teacher present the juvenile male stated his dad was drunk and put him in a Chokehold and shoved the piercing in his ear now whether the boy actually told this story to his friends or not we don't know and whether or not it's true if he did tell the story we don't know but it was this alleged story that caused the Tontitown police to go to Jeremy shirlin's home on Thursday and ask him about the incident when they went to his home Jeremy admitted to piercing his son's ear but wouldn't give the police any further information or allow them to speak to his son this is where Jeremy screwed up and I don't point out his screw up to try to shame an innocent man but to show where he made a mistake so that hopefully someone who's watching this in the future will be able to stay out of trouble by not making the same mistake after speaking with a few different lawyers about this they confirmed to me that the police department likely had Reasonable Suspicion to detain and question the father based on the son's story but that it wasn't enough for probable cause to make an arrest the police didn't obtain probable cause until the father admitted to piercing his son's ear as innocent as he thought that might be the father likely didn't know that he was admitting to committing a Class D Felony according to Arkansas code 20-27-1502 Part B A person shall not perform body art on a person under 16 years of age regardless of parental consent except when authorized by a physician for blah blah blah and when piercing the earlobe also when you scroll down to part eye it says that it's a Class D Felony to perform body art in an unlicensed facility and this is definitely some Nanny State crap right here but the officer that I spoke to told me they were far less concerned with the father allegedly breaking this particular piece of legislation and far more concerned with the sun's alleged initial story than he told in school saying that his father held him down and pierced his ear and that they simply used this statute to be able to get to the father and the son to be able to interview them and find out if there's any actual abuse going on in the home foreign Police Department hey I was just wondering how to pronounce the name of your town Tontitown oh sorry tanti town right correct all right great hey um the uh dad that was arrested uh is the felony charged just for the ear piercing or or is that a misdemeanor and there's a felony charge on top of that the uh the I'm sorry I guess I'm not understanding are you asking if that's the totality of his charges yeah well I I saw a story that said that he pierced his son's ear without a license but then I also saw something about possible child endangerment so what I'm wondering is if piercing his son's ear without a license was a felony or if there was another charge that that was the felony in the piercing itself without a license was a misdemeanor no that uh the that was actually the the felony charge there were additional um misdemeanor charges as well okay so uh doing a piercing without a license is a felony right um piercing her body art without a license in the state of Arkansas is uh is a felony I think we're where people are getting a little confused is that um officers within the department are are outwardly seeking people that Pierce their their kids ears or give them tattoos that's actually not what this was about at all the the original complaint came from um the Springdale Police Department's SRO who in turn opened up an investigation um through the state because of potential child abuse which is the only reason that we went out there in the first place okay and I think that some of the outlets had covered that and said that uh he had told friends at school that his dad was drunk and forcibly pierced his ear right right and and right that's the statement that a teacher in Springdale had overheard and then um that that Springdale teacher is a mandated reporter so they had to call the Department of Human Services and then they notified the Springdale school resource officer since the alleged offense occurred within our jurisdiction then we went to investigate it which we attempted to do um however um the the father wouldn't allow us to to talk to his child and um refuse to give any sort of statement so the only reason that an arrest was made was because of the allegations of um abuse in the home and without any opportunity to actually get a statement from either the alleged offender or the alleged victim then after some discussion with the prosecuting attorney's office it was decided to make an arrest we were outside of the window of being able to make a domestic assault or domestic battery arrest without a warrant and given that it was occurring over the weekend the warrant process actually takes a pretty long time and so it was decided to make a warrantless arrest on a felony charge for the sole purpose of being able to um make sure that that child was in a safe place for the evening and had an opportunity to talk to a Child Advocacy Center okay and has that happened then at this point it has um it has the the child was interviewed by um an advocate a child advocate to try to determine the potential for abuse within the home so at the end of the day I think that a lot of people will have it you know in their mind that this department is out trying to find people that want to give their kids ear piercings and that could be could not be further from the truth it was strictly a measure and a means to safeguard the welfare of a child despite what anybody on the outside would think about it that's ultimately our our goal is to make sure that that child's protected which probably could have been more easily accomplished if we were just given the opportunity to have an interview with him however his father would not allow us to even speak to him to get an opportunity to clear it up so given the options of letting the child potentially remain in an abusive environment or walking away we decided to err on the side of caution um to safeguard the child not knowing all of the the facts and circumstances develop the environments like in the home we're not going to take any chances with that okay so at this point he's spoken with a Advocate and um has he has he been taken from the home then or I mean his father had bonded out so they're they're both back in the home again together at this point right right my understanding is that the child has not been removed from the home we don't have the authority to remove any child from any home um that's not within our purview when it comes to something like that that can to DHS they they conduct an interview and then their own outside uh investigation and then they make a determination about the disposition of the child at that point we don't have any authority to remove any child from any home okay but it it seems as if he's already spoken to an advocate and and maybe this was uh not quite as big of a deal as it may have initially seemed to be is is what the conversation was like with the Child Advocacy Center or DHS I wasn't present during that nor have I seen their report or their findings on it so I can't really speak to that um I can I can tell you that it's my understanding that the child was not removed from the home um which there's a there's a pretty significant threshold in the state of Arkansas for that to happen um but I you know I couldn't tell you about any of the granular details as to how that went I can just tell you that I know the child was removed from the home okay all right um so obviously the arrest was made more because of uh what he stated to his friends that was allegedly overheard and then it's kind of a telephone game then right because uh he said something to his friends his teacher allegedly overheard it and allegedly gave that to a Pio who allegedly passed that on to the police department right right I mean to the to the to my knowledge that the statements were made you were bound to investigate it we attempted to investigate that through an interview process and both speaking to um the potential offender and potential victim however we weren't given that opportunity uh to even interview them uh the father denied access to the child to interview him and refused to answer questions so when we looked at the totality of all the circumstances engaged if there's any Potential Threat to a child within the home um then through the guidance of the Washington County prosecutor's office and um our department then the decision was made to make an arrest and in an attempt to make sure that that child was in a safe environment could go through the process of speaking with DHS investigators and then they could make a determination from there okay this all happened on the weekend right what was the um when the officers first went to the home was that a Friday evening or something when they tried to speak with the father and a son I believe that uh I'm actually I'm not I'm not even sure if you if you don't mind me asking I appreciate I mean the your demeanor and tone that you're taking it's very polite and cordial and professional but I would have to ask what what is your interest in this uh I cover police misconduct stories on the internet um on YouTube sure okay um and um I I do see that there's definitely two I mean I get a lot of stories where you know both sides tell their side and one side sounds like they're full of crap it does sound like there's some legitimate claims on both sides here uh but just trying to understand uh the details of you know what was done and what could have been done I understand that sometimes it's a little tough on you guys when we critique everything you do but I still think it's a necessary part of our society um the reason I ask whether they came on Friday or not is because um from what I understand you guys would be able to pull the child uh aside during school because essentially when a kid is in public school the school has custody over it not the parents right and some right right how however which we can do however we're still not allowed to interview him without the permission of a of a parent and most of the time we try to avoid pulling a child out of class at school um because that just sort of starts the rumor mill within the school and we we tend to not try to create an opportunity where um the kids in the in the schools start you know the rumor mill of you know what did this person do or or what have you so um just to try to maintain um you know the the child's reputation um we we tend to try to do those things at home they're I mean they'll get me wrong clearly there are opportunities where we'll we'll you know we'll talk to kids cool um but we we avoid it if we can just to avoid any opportunities of kids you know coming up with their own conclusions as to why we might be doing that because it gets around I mean you know kids know when the cops are at the school I mean I mean it just takes one one uh one kid to see us there and then here that somebody gets pulled out of class and and then just sort of snowballs from there okay uh well I guess my understanding go ahead go ahead sorry I guess my understanding though was that the school actually has custody over the children now I guess that may vary state by state I've only really had experience with this in New Mexico and Texas and in both States I was told multiple times when dealing with situations like this that yes kids have been taken out and interviewed without their parents present without their parents even being notified and I was told that essentially that's able to be done because uh parents have signed over custody of their children essentially while they're in public school and therefore it's the school that's the legal custodian of them generally that most of the times that that will happen um is if one of the parents is actually a suspect and so we're getting into maybe some really um really difficult Waters to navigate legally here even though it's it's legal and possible a lot of times we still want to have parental consent whether we can or not um just because it's the right thing to do I mean I can you know as a parent I would have I would be really um I'll be really challenged and maybe potentially a little bit upset if I found out that the police officer you know police officer came to interview one of my children at school without my knowledge um so out of um you know out of respect for the parents I mean that's what we're going to do um most of the time now each of course each incident um creates its own recipe right for how we're going to approach it but um you know on the surface when we got the initial complaint this clearly didn't look to be as if it was you know if there was anything so wildly different than in any other potential complaint that a child might have against you know a parent for an abusive situation I mean that's pretty common um in Arkansas and I'm sure other states as well so these are you know these are investigations that we're very used to um the the environment sort of dictates the you know the the course of action I guess uh and so it's not uncommon if we get a complaint to go to the home try to do a home visit talk to the child and talk to the parent and um you know decide where to go from there um the problem in this particular instance is that we were never given the opportunity to even speak with a child um or the parent so really what we're left with is the statements that were overheard by a teacher and then passed on to DHS and then passed on to the school resource officer so it was very limited information but at the end of the day um despite that limited information we're still Duty bound to ensure the welfare of children and in our jurisdiction and it would have been you know a premium option to have had more information and to have had the opportunity to interview the child and to have had the opportunity to interview um the parent we just weren't afforded that opportunity and so we're left trying to make a decision based on the information that we have which arguably was very limited however from the perspective of a law enforcement officer if you're going to be wrong and you're in in you know we don't ever want to be wrong but if you're going to be wrong then we're going to be wrong on the side that ensures the safety of the child that's just really quite frankly something that we're not going to take any chances with okay that's and and I get that position um I think that when we were talking about protecting children often it uh it often gets emotional rather than logical the arguments I think um but I I mean when this when this country was founded uh it was kind of a it was supposed to um there was kind of an attitude that it's better to uh let a hundred guilty men go free than to um than to imprison one innocent man right and it seems that that may have kind of been flipped on its head you know for a reason and I get it for you know seemingly legitimate reasons such as protecting the people protecting children um like like I said the details dictate the course of action I mean if we're dealing with you know if we're dealing with a 20 year old that was at that house and then he happened to tell a police officer hey I was over at this guy's house and he pierced my ear well I really don't think that we would be good stewards with our citizens money to go investigate that because quite frankly there are more pressing matters that they would like us to devote our energy and common resources too yeah and I think that's why there was so much outcry about this because in the beginning it looked as if that was it that was the totality of the circumstance which obviously it's not [Music] spending the resources time and energy is strictly looking for uh people that are piercing ears or giving tattoos I mean I I think that that would be quite silly but there certainly is a lot more um that lended itself to this situation than just that I can I can assure you that um if this if our response had been within the window of time which in the state of Arkansas at the domestic battery is 12 hours and the domestic assault is four hours to where a warrantless arrest could have been made on one of those charges that's the charge that probably you know would have been applied in this circumstance however um that's not the window of time that we were able to work within when you know when we learned of the complaint and then um and then realized the length of time that it would take to have obtained an arrest warrant for either one of those charges meanwhile you know that child is still there in the home um with the potential of facing some some more abuse and so quite frankly it was um it was a rather out of the box way of thinking and a creative um discovery of that charge that was applicable but non-traditional that allowed us to to make their arrest to get that child to an Advocacy Center to um to gauge the the level of abuse there and then once that happens you know the cases is out of our hands I mean we're no longer decision makers at that point and I can I can assure you this was not just a fly by the seat of our pants sort of decision process that was made the initial officers um that went there had the limited information that they had there were there were conference calls with leadership within our department and then we followed that up with gain an Insight from the prosecutor's office to determine collectively as a group what the decision that could we make that would um Safeguard the child and we don't really think you know about the consequences about how people will feel about it on the outside quite frankly that just doesn't matter I mean I know that there are a lot of people that are upset because on the surface as you said it just looks like here we're arresting a father for piercing's child is piercing his child's ears um and and I get that I think I can I see that and that's that's a very fair perspective however um that's just not the situation here um it strictly was a creative solution to a really awkward scenario that we were given and ultimately you know we we made an arrestable decision because at a lot of the opportunity to make sure that that child was at least in a safe environment and the potential for abuse could be be properly gauged and then we could go from there does the statute fit does it apply sure um it does it needs the statutory requirements for what he was arrested for and I agree it's a very non-traditional um arrest um however it again was was made solely with the purpose of making sure that that child was in a safe environment and quite frankly if there are millions of people out there that want to scrutinize that and and make fun of us we're we're okay with that we're not really concerned about what um you know how how people are going to react to that if there are four million or 10 million people that think that that uh that we're backward and silly and whatnot we don't have the opportunity to explain ourselves to 4 million or 10 million people and give them the totality of all the details um they can think what they want at the end of the day we're going to operate with with integrity and we're going to do what's best for the children in our community and they can think what they want okay um I think like you said you were working on limited information right have the all the information that um that the officers had when they went out there and so um you're getting you know maybe a little bit of paraphrasing there but um yeah it was rather limited and our our goal of course is to gather more information but there was just no other source of information to to that we could go to though like like I said the father refused our request to talk to the child and the father refused to answer any questions right well it does seem to me also even understanding the totality of the circumstance that uh one there was a telephone game played here right that uh whatever the the allegations that that his father pinned him down or whatever and and forcibly pierced his ear was allegedly something that was said to his friends which uh and and was overheard by somebody else and then relayed I mean this is as hearsay as it gets right um I mean I believe it that he made to the friend and so you know if we're talking about if our sole source of information was one student to another to another to another that's that's one thing um however the um the teacher is the one that directly overheard um the comment that he made um you know as a as a educator and a teacher that lends a little bit more credibility to the statement that she heard and then on top of that the teacher is a mandated reporter the teacher didn't have doesn't have a choice I mean if he or she wants to maintain their career if they hear of the potential of abuse they're mandated by Arkansas state law to report that to to DHS and so I I would agree this was a matter of we heard this from one student who in turn heard it from another and then in turn heard it from another and then from another then uh then that that's not quite nearly as credible as it that you know the teacher who overheard it uh him or herself and then um so that's why you know it had a little bit more weight to it than it just being hearsay times six okay you think it you think it held enough weight to uh meet the standard of probable cause you know we're getting into some legal terms and a lot of people I think might have some misguidance as to what those mean or at least in the state of Arkansas so um was there probable cause to believe that the that he pierced his child's ear yes there was definitely probable cause to believe that because there was evidence to support that one specific charge because his ear was freshly pierced and um the fathers did say that um he pierced his ear and so that makes sense so essentially you got the probable cause when you went to the door the first time and the father admitted to piercing the ear right because before that all it was was hearsay even if it is from a teacher um and so it was essentially the father speaking to the police when they came to the door the first time that gave you probable cause to make an arrest is that right left at that point they had many conferences like I said with many different people to take the next course of action because when when we attempted to investigate for other looking into any sort of potential uh abuse within the home we were still worth it you know completely and quite frankly their their first visit there the officers that arrived um it was very contentious um the the father um you know I don't know him personally never met him however um the demeanor and um his behavior and the language that he was using was was very contentious so when the decision was made to okay we need to make an arrest here and make sure that this kid is in a safe environment um that's the only reason that there were four officers that went there they were anticipating a very negative response at the time of arrest and fortunately it didn't it didn't get completely out of hand but um I think that the reason that it didn't get out of hand was because there were four officers there I think that if an officer had gone there by him or herself then the potential for um behaviors escalating I would have would have been much greater than that so so when they came back the second time did they actually force entry people are saying they kicked in the door but I'm looking at the video and when I see a kicked in door it's usually got a busted door frame it it looked to me like the father opened the door [Music] listen they were all they had already made the decision that they were going to arrest um during their second visit they knocked on the door and they asked for him to come outside multiple times because they didn't we we try not to arrest anybody in front of their family if we can avoid it and so they asked him to come out to the front porch multiple times he said that he was not going to do that and then started to retreat back into his home well we're just I mean we're never going to allow that to happen that puts everybody in Jeopardy so with the door already open and him starting to retreat back into this home the officers followed him and then put him in handcuffs as quickly as they could okay so they forced their way into an Open Door they didn't Smash down a closed the door I think that I mean we might be getting hung up on semantics here just because the job that I do and the job that you do are a little bit different um yeah but I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily know if I would use that same language and say that they forced their way in they had legal authority to arrest him and he was attempting to retreat back into his home right I'm not arguing that way oh all of them through the open door right yeah I wasn't trying to argue that all I was trying to do is clarify that they did not actually kick a locked door in which is what I with the initial reports made me believe but looking at the video uh it didn't make sense so I'm not trying to hang you up on anything there I just uh just you know I hope you understand at least our caution and trying to you know make sure that we pick our words carefully we don't want to give anybody the wrong impression and we certainly you know don't want to paint ourselves into a corner because of maybe a misperception or a miscommunication so that's that's the only reason that I I wanted to clarify that sure all right well I I'll tell you what I can do I know that you have an interest in this and you seem you know at least on the surface I don't I don't even know your name um but I'll tell you what I I am willing to do if you have a genuine interest in this and you would like access to all the information matter for your own purpose or or whatever I'll be more than happy to give you my name and my email address you can shoot me an email and we can you know engage in another conversation if you have any other questions that I can clarify we're not we're certainly not hiding behind anything we're not willing to be completely forthcoming um so if you have a pen and paper I'll be more than happy to give you my contact information