DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION - A Hay River woman has filed a complaint against the RCMP after her 11-year-old daughter was arrested, handcuffed and held in a police cell in Fort Resolution.

Kerry Giroux said her daughter, Morgan, has been traumatized by the April 30 incident.

"It's very overwhelming," Giroux said. "She's very traumatized. Who wouldn't be?"

Her daughter was staying at a relative's house when a social worker received a call claiming there was a drinking party at the residence and children were present.

The social worker asked for RCMP assistance and they went to the residence at about 10 a.m.

Giroux said her daughter was made to feel embarrassed and ashamed by being arrested.

"Here's my daughter coming out of this house like a criminal," she said.

Giroux said her daughter now doesn't see police as people to help her, but people to fear.

She said the officers were told her daughter's age before they took her to cells.

Morgan also told her mother that the officers were pointing guns while they took her into custody.

Sgt. Brad Kaeding, a criminal operations officer with the RCMP's 'G' Division in Yellowknife, confirmed the girl was placed in handcuffs and arrested.

"There is no prohibition against arresting anyone regardless of their age," he said, although he said anyone under the age of 12 cannot be charged with a crime.

When the officers went to the residence, they did not know what they would find, he said. "What they didn't know was who else was in the house."

However, he said the officers did see two young men enter the house, one of whom was known to police and had recently served time for a violent offence.

The officers forced the front door open and entered with guns drawn, Kaeding said. "That is exercising a proper sense of caution."

The two young men vanished out the window when police arrived.

Giroux said the report of a drinking party at the house was false.

She said police found her daughter, an 18-year-old woman and an infant in a bedroom.

"They went into the bedroom with their guns drawn," she said.

Kaeding said, once the officers assessed the risk, they were able to "de-escalate" their response and holster their weapons.

As for whether guns were pointed, the sergeant questioned that claim, saying the guns were unholstered and whether they were pointed depends on how a person defines pointing.

The officer said the teenaged female, whom he said was intoxicated, and the 11-year-old were detained in cells for about an hour.

Kaeding said it is standard procedure to place a detained person in handcuffs for everybody's wellbeing.

The officer also wondered how officers could know the girl was 11.

Giroux has submitted a complaint to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.

"They messed with the wrong kid," she said. "I'm not going to stand for my kid being bullied."

Giroux, who is originally from Fort Resolution, said she will contact a lawyer and may pursue legal action.

The Department of Health and Social Services has received no formal complaint about the incident, said Dean Soenen, director of child and family services.

Soenen said he has talked to Giroux, but he could not comment to the media on the specifics of the case.