A distraught father is suing the city of Springfield and the Springfield Police Department after cops tested his daughter's ashes for drugs.
The incident, which took place on April 6, 2020, saw two Springfield officers take an urn filled with his daughter's ashes, allegedly believing it to be ecstasy or methamphetamine, the Independent reports.
In body camera footage of the upsetting incident, Dartavius Barnes is pulled over by police allegedly for speeding. According to the Washington Post, the grieving parent was then handcuffed and placed in a squad car.
This video contains body camera footage which some may find upsetting:When the cops tell Barnes that they had found a small container filled with either ecstasy or meth, a horrified Barnes insists that the substance is actually the ashes of his very young daughter, Ta'Naja Barnes.
According to the Independent, Ta'Naja, died at the age of two as a result of neglect and starvation from her mother, T’wanka Davis, and her boyfriend, Anthony Myers. They were both convicted on murder charges in 2020.
"No, no, no, bro, that’s my daughter. What y’all doing, bro? That’s my daughter," Barnes says in the video. "Give me that, bro. That’s my daughter. Please give me my daughter, bro. Put her in my hand, bro. Y’all are disrespectful, bro."
The urn is ultimately returned to Barnes' father, who confirms that the contents of the urn are his granddaughter's ashes.
Bodycam footage then shows one officer telling another: "I’m just going to give him a notice to appear on the weed" - referring to marijuana they’d found in Barnes' vehicle.
To which another officer replies: "Aside from p***ed-off dad and testing the dead baby ashes."
Barnes has now filed a federal lawsuit against the Springfield Police Department, which has been obtained by ABC affiliate NewsChannel 20.
In the suit, filed on October 6, 2020, he claims the officers "unsealed this urn and opened this urn without consent and without a lawful basis including a search warrant" and then "desecrated and spilled out the ashes".
The suit then goes on to add that the officers allegedly "acted knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and maliciously."
The accused officers deny that they unlawfully took, unsealed, and spilled the ashes in the urn, per NewsChannel 20.
They also defended their actions, stating that they are "entitled to qualified immunity as their conduct was justified by an objectively reasonable belief that it was lawful."
Barnes is seeking compensation and punitive damages and a trial by jury.
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