The now-viral video of Syracuse, NY police taking an eight year old boy into one of their squad cars is renewing conversations about how officers interact with the people they're sworn to protect and serve.

Body camera video shows the incident as bystanders took their own video and confronted the officers.
Police say they'd dealt with the child before.
They never handcuffed or arrested him, and say they were only taking him home.

"You don't see the whole thing, you don't know the whole story," says Youngstown Police community liaison Ofc. Malik Mostella, adding that videos like these are often just enough to get people fired up.

"We don't know if the kid did something they weren't supposed to do and the parents actually asked the police officers to handle it that way...which has happened," said Mostella.

He believes the parents setting up an arrest is not something that would happen today, given how police are viewed in many circumstances.
The father of the boy in the video has since told reporters he's not happy with how the officers treated his son.
While it's impossible to say what should've or could've happened, Mostella says every department has its own approach.

In the case of YPD, these interactions are covered in the Field Training Officer program, where new officers ride with experienced officers who have been through training specifically designed to teach cadets. During the four-month training, Mostella says they learn department policy and procedures, as well as community involvement training from CIRV. The cadets are evaluated during each stage of the program while working the beat with their current FTO before they can move on to the next.

Mostella also pointed out some things that YPD officers would do in a situation like the one in Syracuse.

"We're going to call the parents first, I'm going to call the sergeant to the scene...and it also depends on what the child did."

One of the many split-second decisions police have to make every day.