A viral video on TikTok has prompted an internal investigation into the conduct of two Columbus police officers who responded to a call from a parent of an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly coerced into sharing explicit images with an "online predator."
The 100-second front door camera video, posted online on Sunday, shows two officers approaching the front door of a house. The video is captioned saying, "My daughter was a victim and a online predator. Shes 11. He's a grown man. He manipulated her into sending pictures of herself! This was the police response at midnight. We called at 6 (p.m.)"
About halfway through the video, a man opened a door and said his daughter was still in bed.
"It's still happened though, right?" the female officer asked.
"I just wanted you guys to come over and talk to her," the man said. "I just want her to realize what this was. I mean, in reality it's not much I probably can do about it, is there?"
The female officer quickly responded and said "she can probably get charged with child porn."
"Who? She can?" the man responded. "She's 11 years old."
"She is creating it right?" the female officer asked.
"She's 11 years old," the man repeated.
"Doesn't matter, she is still making porn," the officer said.
The man then turned to close the door and told the officers to "have a nice evening" and asks them "are you serious?" before the video ends.
Columbus police acknowledged the video being circulated online in a statement issued Monday afternoon. The statement said the Department of the Inspector General, which investigates complaints of misconduct and excessive use of force by sworn officers, has opened an inquiry into the incident.
"The Division of Police regards all allegations of sexual misconduct with the utmost seriousness. Incidents involving minors are handled with the highest degree of concern. Sexual Assault Unit detectives were immediately notified of the incident and have since initiated an investigation," the statement said.
CPD Chief Elaine Bryant released a statement on Tuesday afternoon that was critical of the officer's actions. She said that as soon as she learned of this incident, the department immediately reached out to the father to apologize and to assure him that both the actions of the officer and any crime that was committed against his child were being fully investigated.
“My expectation is that our officers treat every victim of crime with compassion, decency, and dignity. What I saw in that video did not reflect that — which is why we referred this case to the Inspector General," Bryant said.
Bryant said this incident does not reflect CPD as a while and that officers do outstanding work to bring comfort and justice to victims everyday.
"As I have said from my first day on the job -- when our officers do the right thing, we will have their back. When they don’t, we will hold them accountable," Bryant said.
The video has over 727,000 views on TikTok as of Tuesday afternoon and has been shared to other social media sites.
