A Maryland mother is livid with the police and school officials after her ten-year-old son was questioned by officers without her knowledge. Tiffany Kelly says that her son is disabled and has trouble socializing. In an effort to make friends, the young boy brought fake hundred bills that his mother bought on Amazon with him to school and started handed them out to other students on the bus.
After the students were dropped off, the bus driver found one of the bills, which were clearly fake and featured "bright pink Asian symbols on the front and back" along with dotted lines in the top corner, and called the police.
Police responded to the school and questioned the young boy about the bills, and did so without informing his mother.
"The police came to the school to question my son," Kelly wrote on a Change.org petition. "Outrageous. I did not know any of this occurred until almost 4 pm, at the end of the school day, when the officer decided to call me."
The officer told her that having fake money is not a crime, as long as you don't try to spend it.
"By her own admission, no crime had been committed. At what point do officers determine that a law has not been broken and they move on," Kelly said to NBC News. "I just don't think I would have heard about this happening if he wasn't black."
A spokesman for the Montgomery County Public Schools explained that it is policy to contact authorities if they believe students are using counterfeit money. The district admitted that in this case though, the police should not have been called.
"MCPS staff are actively working with the parent to address her concerns," the spokesman said. "There were some clear missteps on our part and we are working to ensure the process is clear moving forward for staff and that incidents like this do not happen again."