On the morning of July 23, Arkansas natives Myron and Demetria Heard, along with their son, Kaileb Henderson, 13, and their nephew Jayden Nicholson, 12, left the Residence Inn in Frisco, Texas.
With Demetria driving their blue Dodge Charger, the family's destination was the Super 64 Nationals, an AAU basketball tournament being held at Fieldhouse USA in Grapevine.
Kaileb's team, the Jaylen Barford Elite 2029, had a 9:05 a.m. tip-off against the Ball Hawgz 2029.
As the result of a critical mistake by an officer of the Frisco Police Department, the family members would wind up almost 15 minutes late and severely traumatized.
Around 8:30 a.m., as their attorney Mark Hampton stated Thursday, "Their lives changed."
[VIDEO: Watch the full interview here]
That's when a viral police stop took place, one that led to the Black family telling their story for the first time Thursday.
During a half-hour news conference in Little Rock, the Heards and Dia and Jason Nicholson -- Jayden's parents -- recounted a roughly 20- to 25-minute encounter that saw Frisco police officers point guns at them and handcuff and place Kaileb in the back of a police cruiser.
The emotional ordeal was the result of a Frisco police officer inputting the Heards' license plate in a computer search as being from Arizona and not Arkansas, resulting in the belief the Heards' car was stolen.
Frisco police claimed the car was pulled over "due to recent burglaries and vehicle thefts in which Chargers are frequently stolen."
The group is represented by Hampton, a Little Rock attorney who primarily has worked as a criminal defense attorney. He also was part of the litigation in the Whitewater and "Pardon Gate" investigations of President Bill Clinton.
"They were all victims of an unnecessary and unwarranted traffic stop," Hampton said of the Heards and the Nicholsons' son. "That quickly escalated to a place where they were faced with multiple firearms [and] repeated commands to obey or suffer the consequences, which could have ultimately ended in severe physical injury or death had they made a false move while this stop was going on."
Frisco Police Chief David Shilson had previously released a statement apologizing for the incident.
"We made a mistake," Shilson said. "Our department will not hide from its mistakes. Instead, we will learn from them."
Hampton began the Little Rock news conference Thursday by saying the prospect of litigation or damages was not the purpose of the event.
"Frankly, because we're still waiting on a [Freedom of Information] request from the Frisco Police Department and under Texas law they have up to two weeks to reply to that, so we don't have all the information," Hampton said. "Once we gain that, we may have an opportunity to meet again and discuss other details of the detention and arrest."
According to an Associated Press review of the body cam footage released from the incident, the officers apologized repeatedly after the mistake was realized, with one saying they responded with guns drawn because it's "the normal way we pull people out of a stolen car."
Another assured the family that they were in no danger because they followed the officers' orders.
"Y'all cooperate, nothing's going to happen," the officer says. "No one just randomly shoots somebody for no reason, right?"
The officer who initiated the traffic stop and was among those with guns drawn was also Black. She explained that when she checked the license plate, "I ran it as AZ for Arizona instead of AR" for Arkansas.
"This is all my fault, OK?" the officer says. "I apologize for this. I know it's very traumatic for you, your nephew and your son. Like I said, it's on me."
During the stop, Myron Heard dropped his cellphone. On the video, Heard was caught saying, "If I would have went to reach for my phone, we could've all got killed."
"I looked back at these guns everywhere," Myron Heard, a teacher at eSTEM Public Charter School, said on Thursday. "I'm like, 'we haven't done anything,' and for them to take my family through all of that, over a mistake that they made, it's just about an unfortunate situation and it's very dramatic because, like me personally, if I were driving I don't think I'd be sitting here right now."
Demetria Heard, a registered nurse who works in hospice care, was asked what she would want to say to the female officer who made the mistake that led to guns being pointed at them and her son being placed in a police cruiser.
"In the moment, I didn't realize how dismissive you were to us," she said. "When my husband tried to express his feelings and what you had just done to us and our son and nephew, you were very dismissive. You didn't seem genuine at all. You were just trying to plead your case. You never said genuinely apologize. It was just 'my bad, my bad. I made a mistake.' And I'll never be able to understand why. Now that's something my son is going to have to deal with," Heard concluded, breaking down in tears.
Jason Nicholson, a pastor at The Vibe Church in North Little Rock, emphasized that it was "a mistake that could cost four lives and four caskets within the blink of an eye. All because of a mistake."
While Shilson, the Frisco chief, has issued an apology, the family members did not hear from him directly until the next Wednesday.
"The deputy chief called us on Tuesday evening and Chief Shilson called Demetria and I Wednesday afternoon," said Dia, the sister of Myron. "I told Chief Shilson, 'we appreciate you giving us a call. But this happened on Sunday. It's Wednesday afternoon. So it just leads me to believe that you're only calling as a result of the media outrage.'"
The emotional impact on the children involved in the ordeal was emphasized during the news conference.
One of the children was captured crying heavily in the body cam footage while being forced to place his hands on the back of the police car.
"Our son, Jadyen, was in the backseat of the car and my brother mentioned he was screaming for his life," Dia Nicholson said. "'We're about to die! We're about to die!' Like screaming and tears petrified."
She said Jadyen remains "traumatized," has lost his appetite and hasn't slept in his own room since the incident.
Myron Heard does not want to be seen as being anti-police.
"I'm a coach. I work with the youth. I just try to encourage them," he said. "I don't tell them to hate cops. I have parents of my players as cops. I have frat brothers as cops. Even after this, you're supposed to love your neighbor. ... But my son, he's not talking. ... He's not himself. Just think about he had to go play three games after the incident and was only able to play one. He looked me in the eye on the court and said, 'Dad, I can't do it.'"
When it came to the decision to speak out about what had happened to them, for Demetria Heard, it was seeing a video that included her son holding both hands up with two police officers pointing guns at his back.
While she had been present in the moment, she hadn't seen everything that occurred with her own eyes.
"When I seen that video, it really broke me, it really broke me bad," she said. "I just had to do something about it. ... I had to say something for my son and I could not live with knowing that I didn't say something, because this was just going to get brushed under the rug, just like in all the other instances."
Aiding in the family's quest will be Hampton, who has represented members of Myron Heard's family in the past.
"If they got a contract issue they'll call me," Hampton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Explains why a redneck criminal defense lawyer is taking point on this."
When asked if this case is out of his wheelhouse, he answered "Absolutely."
He'll be helped by a 78-year-old "jack of all trades" lawyer in Dallas named W.P. Barlow who's "adept at settling litigation, putting together mergers on companies."
Why is the case of the Heards and Nicholsons important enough for Hampton to take on?
"I just think it's a terrible tragedy," Hampton said. "I am pro law enforcement, you understand, but the members of my law enforcement that are friends of mine know that when they screw up, they need to be accounted for and so that's the only reason I'm involved."
Hampton said he has people at his practice looking for similar incidents to what happened to the Heards.
"Running the wrong tag number, I understand. That could happen, that's human error," Hampton said. "But to put on a felony takedown like this seemed a little bit overboard."
Demetria Heard, with her husband Myron, speaks at their lawyer’s office in Little Rock on Thursday. The couple was held at gunpoint with their son, Kaileb Henderson, and their nephew, Jayden Nicholson. Video at arkansasonline.com/84frisco/ and arkansasonline.com/84trfstop/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)