Lawsuit Filed Against Florida Police After Arrest Of Nia Whims

Let’s say a person who has some sort of issue with you decides to create a social media account using your name but not using an IP address associated with you. And let’s say said person with an issue with you uses said fake account to make murderous and terroristic threats. How long would you guess it would take for the authorities and the social media platform to figure out you’re not responsible for the threatening messages? An hour? Three hours? A full day at the most?

How about 11 days?

And what if, for nearly the entirety of those 11 days, you were a 13-year-old Black girl locked in a juvenile detention center? So for the better part of two weeks, you were an innocent child just in her teen years being separated from your family and imprisoned for something you didn’t do giving you an up-close and personal look at our racist AF criminal justice system you never asked for.

Such was the case for Nia Whims of Miramar, Fla.

According to the New York Times, Nia’s family is suing Meta, the company that owns Instagram,  Renaissance Charter School at Pines, and the Pembroke Pines Police Department over an incident that took place last year when one of her classmates at the school impersonated her on Instagram and used the account to threaten to blow up the school. The impersonating student also made fake murder threats against herself as well as a teacher at the school and that teacher’s family.

Nia reportedly denied sending the messages when the police came to her home to question her, so why did it take so long to prove an easily provable claim of innocence?

Well, according to the police, it was all the Black family’s fault.

“Following an extensive and thorough investigation by our department, the original student arrested in this case (a 13-year-old female, Victim #1) was exonerated of these charges,” the department said in a statement. “At the time of our initial investigation in November 2021, the family of the victim chose to exercise their rights and did not cooperate with investigators.”

Nia was arrested on November 19 of last year. Her mother, Lezlie-Ann Davis, denied refusing to cooperate and said she tried to prove her daughter was innocent that day by giving investigators the iPad Nia was using for their investigation. The department claimed in its news release that Davis “began cooperating” with the investigation on December 21—nearly a month after Nia was released on Nov. 29—and that her cooperation “caused investigators to apply for a subpoena for the I.P. addresses associated with the threatening messages,” which ultimately proved it wasn’t Nia.

Nia’s attorney, Marwan Porter, said the police account was a lie and that “this was a joke of an investigation.”

“Our natural inclination is whatever they’re saying is the truth,” Marwan Porter, Nia’s attorney, said referring to police officers commonly being taken at face value, despite the fact that they lie like everyone else does. “Let me tell you, it’s not, in many situations.”

One would think that If a teenager is denying sending messages like the ones Nia was accused of sending, Investigators would subpoena the I.P. address before putting a child through the terror and trauma of being placed in a detention center for 11 days. In fact, the lawsuit claims that information was “literally available at the press of a button.”

The lawsuit alleges that police failed “to promptly investigate this easily discoverable information,” and that Instagram refused “to promptly provide or cooperate with the investigating officers,” which resulted in a Nia being placed in handcuffs imprisoned, which the lawsuit said, “shocks the conscience and is beyond the bounds of decency.”

It’s not really all that shocking though. Our so-called justice system has proven time and time again that it has no moral qualms with the adultification of Black children.

‘When it comes to our babies—when it comes to our children, law enforcement needs to make sure they do a thorough investigation,’ Marwan Porter, an attorney for Nia and her family, told CBS Miami, adding that during Nia’s incarceration, “Another young lady who was in (the detention center), older than (Nia), threatened to stab her over a piece of chocolate.”

Hopefully, Nia and her family get awarded everything they’re suing for. No innocent child should ever experience this.