TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A case against two Tacoma police officers accused of telling a woman to beat her 9-year-old grandson with a belt should not have been dismissed, an appellate court said Tuesday.

Prosecutors charged Jesse Jahner and Damion Birge with third-degree child assault and official misconduct, the News Tribune reported. They were fired by the Tacoma Police Department following an internal investigation.

Charging papers said the officers responded to a 911 call that involved the boy, who had the intellectual capacity of a 4-year-old. Birge allegedly told her to “beat the demons” out of the child and showed the woman how to use the belt by hitting it on a table.

Jahner allegedly held the boy down as the grandmother hit the child. They allegedly told her they wouldn’t respond to her home in the future if she didn’t.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Jerry Costello granted Birge’s and Jahner’s motions to dismiss those charges in 2019, and the state appealed.

The new ruling from a three-judge panel of the Washington State Court of Appeals reversed that dismissal and remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.

“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the State has presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of guilt of both third degree assault and official misconduct, even if some facts are in dispute,” Judge Rebecca Glasgow wrote for the unanimous panel.

The panel also rejected arguments from the defendants that the official misconduct statute is too vague and too broad to be constitutional.

“Obviously we’re disappointed,” attorney David Allen, who represents Jahner, said Tuesday. “... We’re ready to go back to trial whenever the court tells us to.”

Attorney J.C. Becker, who represented Birge and retired last year, said via email Tuesday: “... the decision was just issued today and we have yet to discuss it. It does not say they were guilty, just that there was ‘enough’ evidence for a trial.”