A police officer in Rutherford County, Tenn., sees a video of little kids fighting, and decides to investigate. This leads to the arrest of 11 kids for watching the fight. The arrests do not go smoothly. From Serial Productions and The New York Times in partnership with ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio, “The Kids of Rutherford County” is reported and hosted by Meribah Knight, a Peabody-award winning reporter based in the South.
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It was a March afternoon in Rutherford County, Tennessee, a growing community about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
School was out for the day and a dozen or so little kids were playing a game of pickup basketball in someone's backyard.
And then, as kids do, one said something about another kid's mom.
This insult led to some shoving, and then, as kids also do, one of them pulled out a cell phone and started filming.
Look, I'm walking away.
There's some kind of heavy neon filter over the whole video, so it's hard to make out any faces, but here's what you can see.
An 8 year old boy, hands shoved into the pockets of his oversized parka, is trying to walk away from everyone when a Smaller boy, about 5 or 6, runs up behind him and smacks him in the back a few times.
Then another little kid runs up and takes his turn, throws a couple feeble punches to the back of the kid walking away.
Some of the older boys are egging them on.
Meantime, off camera, you can hear one girl try to break it up.