MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — A Mississippi mom says her 10-year-old son is traumatized after being treated like an adult criminal because he had to go to the bathroom.

“It’s taken a toll on him. He is at the point where he don’t even want to go anywhere,” Latonya Eason said Wednesday.

She spoke a day after her attorney, Carlos Moore, said they would not sign off on a probation agreement for the boy, calling it “unjust and inappropriate” to treat a child like a criminal for the charge of public urination.

Back in August, Eason was getting some advice inside a lawyer’s office across from the Tate County Courthouse in Senatobia, Mississippi, when an officer came into the office and stated her son was using the bathroom behind her car.

Eason said they walked outside together.

“I ask my son, why did he do it. He said, ‘Mom I had to use the bathroom.’” She says the office had a sign stating no public restroom.  

“Officer told me I did what a mother should. Just make sure he don’t do it again. He allowed my baby to get back in my car,” Eason said.

But it didn’t end there.

“Shortly after, about four or five officers pulled up. One was a lieutenant. He got out and asked what was going on. The officer told him that my son urinated behind my car. Told my child to get out of the car. My child got out of my car. ‘Put your hands behind your back.'”

They put her son in the back of a patrol car.

“As they put my son in the patrol car, I walked over behind him. I gave him some love and told him I was right behind him,” Eason said. “It’s so heartbreaking and sad to know they actually had my baby in a cell only at the age of 10, only because he did something any other kid would do.”

One of the officers involved is no longer employed. The Senatobia Police Department said at the time that the other officers involved in the incident would also face discipline.

But the punishment for Eason’s son stood: three months probation and a two-page essay on basketball star Kobe Bryant.

“How are you going to treat my child as if he is a real criminal?” Eason asked. “You have people out here that do way worse than that and they get a slap on the wrist. But you want to ask my 10-year-old to write a two-page essay. He’s in the third grade. They aren’t even on essays yet.”

Moore, her attorney, said they thought the probation would be some simple time of adjustment probation geared toward a juvenile.

“We found out yesterday it’s not geared towards a juvenile. They are treating him like an adult criminal,” Moore said.

That means the boy would have to check in, take random drug tests and have an 8 p.m. curfew.

“The terms of probation are unacceptable so I advised my client to not sign the probation agreement,” Moore said, calling the punishment “excessive, unnecessary, all over public urination he did discreetly on private property.”

Moore is actively pursuing legal avenues to address this issue and is seeking to file a motion to dismiss the case. They’re also prepared to go to trial if necessary.

The case will go before Tate County Youth Court on Jan. 16, where Moore will ask for the case to be dismissed.

“I am really terrified,” Eason said. “It’s beginning to get the best of me, but I won’t let it because I know I have someone on my side who is going to fight for us.”