Father Says He Was Pepper-Sprayed and Arrested While Trying to Report His Son Missing in Mena, Arkansas

A video that has been circulating widely on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and YouTube since early October shows a Mena, Arkansas man named Edward Corristan being pepper-sprayed, taken to the ground and handcuffed by a local police sergeant outside the Polk County Courthouse. Corristan says he was there for one reason: to get help finding his missing 2-year-old son.

The clip — widely attributed to police bodycam footage, though IF DAILY has not independently verified that the full, unedited footage matches every detail being shared online — has turned a quiet family court dispute in a small Arkansas town into a national flashpoint, with a Change.org petition and thousands of comments demanding accountability from the officer involved.

According to Corristan and multiple accounts circulating online, his son, Craig Corristan, was last seen on November 14, 2025, at a Walmart in Mena. Corristan says that when he first tried to report his son missing, the Mena Police Department declined to take the report.

That changed on March 11, 2026, when a Polk County judge granted Corristan primary custody of Craig in a court order that reportedly named the Mena Police Department directly. Four days later, on March 15, Corristan went to the police station with that order in hand, asking officers to act on it and open a missing-child investigation.

What happened next is the part now circulating online: the video shows Corristan in a heated exchange with an officer identified as Sgt. Eddie Price, which escalates into Price pepper-spraying him and taking him to the ground before he is placed under arrest. According to the Mena Police Department, Corristan was arrested on charges of interference with a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct.

IF DAILY has not been able to independently obtain a transcript of the full encounter or a copy of the original incident report, and most of what has circulated — including Corristan's account that he was simply trying to comply with a valid court order when he was sprayed and arrested — comes from the video itself, social media posts and a cluster of online write-ups rather than from on-the-record local news coverage or court filings IF DAILY could directly verify. That does not mean the claims are false; it means they should be read as what they are: a father's account and a widely shared video, not yet a fully adjudicated record.

As the video gained renewed attention in early October, the Mena Police Department acknowledged it in a public statement on October 6, saying the use of force had already been reviewed under department policy following the March arrest. The statement reportedly did not announce any disciplinary action against Sgt. Price or say whether his duty assignment had changed. Local officials also said information about the encounter had been referred to the Arkansas State Police, meaning the incident may still face outside review.

Separately, multiple accounts say Corristan was found guilty of the charges against him and fined after an appearance in Mena District Court — though IF DAILY could not confirm the exact date or terms of that outcome from a primary source, and at least one secondary account describes the result of any court proceeding as unclear. We're not treating that detail as settled.

What is not in dispute is the most important fact in this story: as of this week, Craig Corristan is still listed as missing, more than ten months after he was last seen. Online accounts describe ongoing frustration from Corristan and his supporters that the case hasn't produced a public update, an AMBER Alert, or word of the boy's whereabouts — though IF DAILY has not independently confirmed the status of any active search.

A video alone rarely tells the whole story, and this one has already picked up its share of confident claims in the retelling online. What's clear is that a toddler has been missing for nearly a year, a father says the system failed to help him, and the officer involved is now facing a wider state-level look at what happened outside that courthouse in March. The rest — including exactly what led up to the moment the pepper spray came out — is something only a fuller public record can settle.