The Kids of Rutherford County - Trailer

Hey serial listeners, Sarah Koenig here.

We've got a new show coming out.

It's hosted by Mariba Knight, a reporter based in Nashville.

A few years ago, Mariba reported on a local story about a group of 11 kids who'd been arrested.

Not for fighting, but for watching a fight.

Not even a fight, really.

A skirmish is probably a better description.

A five and six year old throwing some feeble punches at an eight-year-old.

But the whole group of kids arrested.

Little elementary school-age kids, handcuffs, police cruisers, a few of them even booked into the juvenile detention center.

It was outrageous.

But also, yeah, maybe just one of those News of the Weird type stories.

But Mariba started digging.

And what she realized was that in the county where this took place, Rutherford County in Tennessee, in that county, arrests like this may be not so weird.

Mariba found out this had been going on for years.

Kids in Rutherford County arrested and jailed at an alarming alarming rate.

And then she asked why.

The show is called The Kids of Rutherford County and we produced it with our partners at ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio.

We've got a trailer here for you if you want to check it out.

The show is coming out on October 26th.

It's four tight episodes.

So please go follow the kids of Rutherford County and each episode will be delivered to you as it's released.

Here's the trailer.

Do you remember what year it was that

you were arrested and jailed?

I was so young that I don't even remember

what was going on at that time.

Yeah, right.

And so you were...

How old were you?

Seven?

Oh my God.

When Brandon was just seven years old, police showed up at his door to arrest him.

Brandon's offense?

Tagging along with his older brothers, who'd wrestled in a vacant duplex and left some holes in the drywall.

Now, police were there to take Brandon and his brothers to the juvenile detention center, jail, basically.

My mom said that they weren't gonna take me in, but they were like, well, he needs to learn his lesson.

Brandon was held in detention overnight and then brought to the juvenile court for his hearing.

They had me

in shackles from our feet to our arms going into court.

Brandon should have gone home with his mom that day, but when he went before the judge, she sent him back to jail for a week.

Brandon's arrest and detention happened in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and his case wasn't unique there.

For over a decade, the county was arresting and jailing kids for even the most minor offenses.

I didn't want to go to school.

I just ran away.

I spray painted a penis on a wall.

It happened so often to so many kids in Rutherford County that getting sent to juvenile detention was almost a rite of passage.

In many cases, what it also was, was illegal.

This is the story of how that system came to be, how it came to be normalized, accepted, lauded even.

It's also the story of two insiders who actually did see the problem in Rutherford County.

They would sit out and smoke a cigarette and say, we're going to burn this place to the ground.

They just needed other people to see it too.

From Serial Productions and the New York Times, I'm Mariby Knight, and this is the Kids of Rutherford County coming October 26th.

For me, I feel like it was like a dream that never happened, but it actually happened.