Boy subject of controversial stop and frisk speaks to FOX 5

An 11-year-old boy stopped by police near Capitol Hill before Christmas is sharing his version of what happened with FOX 5.

The stop is the subject of controversy after neighbors criticized Tuesday night how police handled the three young black boys. They also demanded to see the officers' body-worn camera videos.

Police have said they responded to a call of a violent assault in progress at the CVS on Potomac Avenue SE on the afternoon of Dec. 22. The caller said an elderly man reported being harassed by three young boys who may have had a knife.

Police never found a knife and did not charge the boys, yet they questioned them for nearly an hour, while a neighbor captured cell phone video. D.C. Police said the stop took so long because they were waiting for the children's parents to pick them up.

The boy, whose identity FOX 5 is protecting, says he and his friends are the ones who felt threatened by the older man.

"You're waving and swinging a cane at three little kids and what proof did you even have that they were actually trying to assault you?" asked the boy's mother Symra Dunbar.

"When I put my hand in my pocket and pulled it back out he said that he claimed that I had a knife but I ain't have no knife with me," the boy said.

Dunbar says she only found out her 11-year-old son was the subject of a police stop and frisk from her older son. She says she believes an officer tried calling her the day of the incident, but did not leave a message.

Dunbar also says police did not notify her that the stop was on video or that it would be the subject of a community meeting.

Police so far have refused to release the body-camera video, which would reveal several more angles and audio of the encounter, despite pleas from an advisory neighborhood commissioner and neighbors.

Chief Peter Newsham and Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) have cited privacy in declining to release the body-cam video.

Under the law Dunbar is entitled to view and copy the video free of charge if she requests it. She tells FOX 5 she plans to do that.

"I can only imagine what was being said because there was no audio and that was my biggest concern. What questions were you asking them?" said Dunbar.

A D.C. Police spokesman says police are open to discussing the incident with Dunbar and showing her the officers' video. They say they did not tell her about the ANC meeting because it was not a police-sponsored meeting.