Jeremy Sherland, Tontitown, Arkansas father arrested in police raid for piercing teen son’s ear as state law forbids body art on anyone younger than 16.
‘Why are you doing this?!’ TikTok video has captured the moment an Arkansas father’s home was raided by no less than 4 police officers who arrived to arrest the man, for allegedly piercing his son’s ear – on account of the youth being younger than 16.
The brouhaha began began during a Tontitown Police Department welfare check after a Springdale High School resource officer reported a student telling classmates his drunk father ‘put him in a choke hold and shoved the piercing in his ear,’ cops said in a statement.
Jeremy Sherland, 45, admitted to piercing his son’s ear, but refused to let officers speak to the boy — and would not answer any further questions.
Police later returned in numbers with an arrest warrant issued by the Washington County Prosecutors Office, which sparked the mayhem captured on video.
In the TikTok posted by Sherland’s son, four officers were seen inside the Sherland’s home, pinning the father against the wall and placing handcuffs on the man.
‘Why are you doing this?!’
‘I wanted my ears pierced,’ Sherland’s son is heard yelling at officers in the now-viral video.
Sherland’s wife is seen asking the officers why they were in the house and demanding to know what cause they had to arrest her husband.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Sherland’s son asked the officers while they were manhandling his father.
During the chaos, an officer explains to the woman that the father is being arrested for performing ‘body art without a license,’ to which Sherland lets out an exaggerated laugh and sarcastically repeats the officer, seemingly baffled by the charges.
Officers then attempted to escort the father out of his home but were met with a brief struggle by Sherland — forcing police to shove him out the front door.
As officers marched the irate father away down the suburban street, his wife and son followed, both in total disbelief at the situation.
‘It takes three cops, four cops, coming into my house with no permission. No permission and busted in my front door,’ his wife screams at the cops as they move toward their vehicles with her cuffed husband.
Overboard?
‘I wanted my ears pierced,’ Sherland’s son yells at the officers as they place his dad in the patrol car.
In Arkansas, it is illegal for artists to ‘perform body art on a person under sixteen (16) years of age, regardless of parental consent.’
Violation of that law is a Class D felony.
Since Sherland was not a licensed artist, it was also illegal for him ‘to perform body art in any unlicensed facility.’
The father was also charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, refusing to submit to arrest, and obstructing governmental operations the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported.
Sherland was released on a $1,500 bond Saturday after spending two nights in the Washington County jail, according to online records.
