British 15-Year-Old Arrested by Armed Officers for Afro Pick Mistaken as Gun

Rochae Davis had a black Afro pick tucked into her waistband.

That’s reportedly what surveillance footage picked up as she was walking around Croydon in South London, and that is what the armed police who apprehended her supposedly identified as being a gun, the Croydon Advertiser reports.

The 15-year-old girl spent nine hours in police custody last Friday, having been arrested on suspicion of having a firearm.

Rochae’s mother, Simone Davis, said that it is all just “a terrible mistake,” saying, “There is no way my daughter would have a gun—she isn’t that type of girl.”

Rochae was meeting up with friends over the weekend at a McDonald’s when a girl from another school, who was looking for a fight, confronted her, the Advertiser reports.

“This girl had been bothering Rochae for months, wanting a fight with her over something really stupid,” Simone Davis explained to the news site. “My daughter didn’t want to back down, so she agreed in order to save face.”

So the two girls, along with their friends, went off to find a place where they could fight without being caught on surveillance.

“Rochae had heard the girl had a knife so she took her friend’s comb—because it’s got silver spikes—as protection and put it into her waistband. That’s what has been seen on camera,” Simone Davis continued.

However, no weapons were used during the two-minute fight, according to Rochae; the pick stayed tucked in her waist. “I went back to McDonald’s for a while and then left to go home,” Rochae told the Advertiser. “As I was walking back with a friend, six police officers appeared … and had guns. They pushed us against a wall and searched us.

“It was only after they had finished that they said they had seen me on CCTV with a firearm,” the teen added. “I was so confused. I said I didn’t have a gun, but they wouldn’t listen.” Rochae said that she was very scared as she was processed.

“I’m very angry,” her mother said. “Rochae is just a child, she’s traumatized. I’m not saying she is an angel, but she has never been in trouble with the police.

“My sister was in the interview with her and she was able to see the CCTV footage, and you can see it’s an Afro comb,” Simone Davis added. “I haven’t slept. I’m so worried for her. I know it wasn’t a gun.”

Rochae has since been bailed out and is expected to appear at the police station sometime in April.

A police representative acknowledged that no firearm has been recovered.

Read more at the Croydon Advertiser.