The Springfield Police Department is accused of drug-testing an urn that contained a girl’s ashes.
Officers reportedly alleged to the girl’s father that the ashes tested positive for meth.
Dartavius Barnes is suing the Springfield Police Department after police officers searched his daughter’s urn during a traffic stop in April 2020. TMZ shared the recently-released body camera footage that showed police apparently ignoring the man as he tried to tell them “that’s my daughter…can I please have my daughter.”
An officer can be seen closing the door of the police cruiser on Barnes and continuing to test the urn as the man repeatedly calls out “give me my daughter…please, give me my daughter.”
The Springfield officers on the scene opted to return the urn to the man’s father, the body cam video shows.
Barnes' daughter was 2 years old when she died because of neglect and starvation from her mother, Complex reports. His lawsuit says that Springfield 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.”
Officers have denied the allegations and a lawyer for the City of Springfield did not immediately comment, according to the New York Daily News.
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