The video of officer Mark Preston tasering 12-year-old Elijah Turner on his own front porch went viral in a way that few stories ever do. Within a week, it had been viewed over 40 million times across every platform. The image that spread everywhere was a still frame from Linda Hernandez's recording. Elijah on the ground, his small body convulsing from the taser, his hands reaching out and Preston standing over him with the taser still in his hand. The public outrage was immediate and overwhelming.
Protests formed outside the Charlotte Police Department within 48 hours. Parents brought their children and held signs that read, "He was 12 and picking up a package is not a crime." The hashtag Justice for Elijah trended nationally for 2 weeks straight. Celebrities, activists, and politicians all shared the video and demanded accountability. Officer Mark Preston was placed on administrative leave within 72 hours of the incident.
The internal affairs investigation moved faster than any investigation in the department's history because the evidence was impossible to ignore. Preston's body cam footage showed everything from his perspective. Him seeing Elijah, making the assumption immediately, confronting him aggressively, laughing when Elijah showed him the package, grabbing him when he tried to run, ignoring Linda's confirmation that Elijah lived there, and deploying the taser on a 12-year-old child who was crying and begging to be let go. The investigation also pulled Preston's complete personnel file, and what they found confirmed what everyone already suspected. Over his eight years on the force, Preston had been the subject of five formal complaints from Black and Latino residents.
All five complaints alleged racially biased stops, excessive force, or treating innocent people like criminals. All five complaints had been investigated and dismissed with minimal consequences. The department had the pattern documented in black and white, and they had done nothing to stop it. Three weeks after the incident, officer Mark Preston was terminated. But that wasn't the end of it.
Criminal charges were filed against him by a special prosecutor brought in from outside the county. The charges included assault on a minor, excessive use of force, false imprisonment, and violation of civil rights under color of law. Preston's criminal trial took place 6 months later, and the jury deliberated for less than 3 hours before returning guilty verdicts on all counts. He was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of probation. His law enforcement certification was permanently revoked.
At 36 years old, his career was over and his name would be forever tied to one of the most egregious examples of police violence against a child ever recorded. Rebecca Turner's federal civil rights lawsuit was filed 2 weeks after the incident. The lawsuit named Officer Preston and the Charlotte Police Department as defendants and sought $1.4 million in damages for excessive force, unlawful detention, assault, and battery on a minor, violation of constitutional rights, and deliberate indifference to a pattern of misconduct. The city's legal team reviewed the evidence, body cam footage, neighbor video, witness statements, medical