Michigan police looking for 40-year-old White woman arrest 11-year-old Black girl

Carrie Manning (l) & Honestie Hodges

Nothing destroys trust in the system quite like an encounter with its agents. It also doesn’t help when they apparently can’t tell the difference between a 40-year-old White woman and an 11-year-old Black girl.

Honestie, along with two women who left the home with her, were arrested as police were looking for the girl's aunt, Carrie Manning, who was suspected of stabbing her little sister at a nearby home. The family is upset because Manning is a 40-year-old white woman and Honestie is an 11-year-old black girl.

Manning was later found and arrested, and the day after the incident, Grand Rapids police opened an internal investigation following a complaint from the family.

There’s bittersweet news, though:

Honestie said the arrest has now changed her outlook on law enforcement and on her own future.

“I wanted to be a detective or police officer, but now I don’t want anything to do with those kind of things,” Honestie said.

If nothing else comes of this, at least she’s learned an important lesson.

(via @BoingBoing; RT: @radleybalko)