We are getting a clearer picture of what happened the night a 12-year-old Enfield girl had an interaction with police a week before her death.
We are getting a clearer picture of what happened the night a 12-year-old Enfield girl had an interaction with police a week before her death.
NBC Connecticut has obtained the body camera footage from the officer who stopped the girl along Elm Street in the early morning hours of March 11.
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WATCH HEREFrom the incident report NBC Connecticut first obtained, we know that police were called for alleged larceny at the Mobil gas station on Elm Street. The clerk told police the girl stole an energy drink from the store.
In the newly released body camera video, which is heavily redacted, the officer talks with the girl, who can be seen holding the energy drink. The officer speaks to another officer by phone and says the girl said she was bored and that's why she was out alone past 2 a.m. He also said the girl admitted to taking the drink.
The officer drives her home and then speaks to her mother, who is surprised to find her daughter had left the house by herself at that hour.
"She's never done anything like this before. She's not allowed out in the middle of the night," the mother said to the officer.
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He asks the mother if her daughter has some kind of congitive impairment and the mother confirmed her daughter had autism -- something police reported after her death.
The officer learns from a fellow officer back at the Mobil that the officer paid for the energy drink for the girl and the clerk agreed not to press charges.
For his report, the officer asks the mother to ask her daughter in front of him why she took the energy drink. The video is silent for that part of the conversation due to the girl's age.
Police filed a report with DCF about the incident and DCF told NBC Connecticut they were investigating the circumstances of the incident.
The girl was found dead in her bedroom one week later on March 18.
Her stepfather, 39-year-old Anthony Federline, was arrested a little more than two weeks later and charged with sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.
The girl's cause and manner of death are still pending.
