ORLANDO, Fla. — One of the provisions of a new law aimed at police reform bans the arrest of anyone under the age of 7. 

It was in part inspired by and named after a young girl in Orlando who police arrested when she was just 6 years old.

On that day in 2019, then 6-year-old Kaia Rolle was led away from her school, crying and begging, with her hands restrained behind her in zip ties by two Orlando Police Department officers.  

The arresting officer, Dennis Turner, was fired.

Her grandmother Meralyn Kirkland says that experience haunts Rolle to this day. 

“In the morning sometimes driving her to school, if there’s a police car coming behind us with the lights on, she’ll be like ‘They’re coming for me!’ And I’ll be like ‘No, they’re not coming for you.’ And then when they pass she’d be like ‘Are they going to my school? Are they going to go arrest my friends?’” Kirkland said. 

Rolle says it was so scary, she would not want it to happen to anyone else. 

“I don’t anyone, ever in this whole entire world to ever go through what I’ve gone through,” Rolle said. 

That inspired her grandmother to push for change. 

For two years she worked with State Sen. Randolph Bracy (D-Orlando) to get a minimum age for arrests to be passed. 

Then finally in this session, lawmakers were able to get it through as part of HB 7501, which includes other police reforms. 

“We’re very, very grateful to get it to age 7 because every journey starts with the first step,” Kirkland said. 

It is only a first step, she says, because they were pushing for the minimum age to be 12.

Rolle is now 8 years old, so she is not even protected by the law she helped inspire. 

“We’re gonna continue the fight to get it to age 12,” Kirkland said. 

So that her grandaughter, and thousands more like her, can just focus on being a kid. 

Kirkland says she has since heard from others in different states where there is no minimum arrest age. 

So she hopes the law Rolle inspired will start a movement nationwide.