Did you think this gif was funny? The police didn’t.
Clarice Hunston of Keystone, VA posted a humorous gifset of her son feeling guilty after accidentally taking a cup from a restaurant. To most tumblr users, it was a sentimental image of a child growing up, learning from his mistakes.
But when it passed 10,000 notes, it wasn’t the tumblr radar but the police radar that took over. Officer Summerville of the Keystone police saw the gifs and tracked down the Hunton family through their the KPD Cyber-Crimes division, and arrested the child, age 7.
He was indicted this afternoon of aggravated theft, conspiracy to commit theft and resisting arrest. The last charge of resisting, was the result of the child crying. He did nothing else, he just cried while they arrested him so they tasered him, as you can see in this cell phone footage taken by the child’s grandfather:
(WARNING GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING FOOTAGE)
Facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 years, the family is unable to afford a lawyer and will have to plead guilty to avoid court costs that would cripple the family of 5 other children held together by a single mother working 3 jobs to support them after the father was killed in Afghanistan.
Friends of the family have stated that they need your help to see that justice is done, and there’s a slim window in which to do it. The only way the police will let the child go is for this post to get reblogged 5,000,000 times by the day of the hearing. Similar to the healing effects of Facebook likes on cancer, the court is willing to reconsider the charges so long as the 5,000,000 reblog mark (Likes do not count) is hit as of the beginning of the trial.
So please do all you can for this poor little boy and ignore any suspicions that this is merely a ploy for tumblr notes. This isn’t about FIJMU, this is about justice and nothing else. We got that lady a fluffy chicken, we can get this boy justice, and justice is the only thing that matters!
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