Via Rawstory
As Arthur Velazquez was riding his bike down the street, police claimed that he ‘fit the description’ because he was wearing a hoodie and on a bike, so they stopped him.
While he was detained, he simply pulled out his phone and called his sister out of concern that something bad was about to happen.
“I’m thinking about my own safety,” Velazquez said. “I had a feeling that with these two officers something bad was going to happen; that’s why I called my sister.”
Unfortunately, his feeling of something bad happening came true when officers attacked him for making this call.
Police claim that they feared for their lives when Velazquez told them that he was calling his sister, so they had no other choice but the escalate the situation to violence and beat an innocent man.
So he supposedly “fit the description” because he was wearing a hoodie? Are you serious? They had no other choice because he was making a phone call? That’s not a crime, and ultimately they didn’t cite him for that because there’s no such thing. They cited him for not having a light on his bike, which isn’t why they stopped him at all.
Here’s the news report.
I find the statement from the Detective particularly galling.
Taking five minutes and complying and calling your sister when you got done, would have gone a long way,” Berry said. “He could have moved on for the evening.”
He was calling his sister because he felt like he might be assaulted. He was assaulted and the since they had no real reason to stop him, and he didn’t actually fit the description, they could have just let him “move on the evening” without bothering him at all, or just let him call his sister and then let him move on but they didn't do either of those.
They assaulted him, then made up a bogus minor charge over his bicycle light. This is bullshit, and it’s exactly why the so-called “Ferguson Effect” is bullshit because if it wasn’t shit like this wouldn’t be happening. However, it still does.
Through the 10 Point Plan for Justice Reform published by Black Lives Matter does cover quite a few areas, it doesn’t include reforms for public defenders such as ensuring that they have resource parity with the opposing prosecutor’s office. If they did it would be a far more even and fair fight in court for any person who suffers from this kind of unprovoked police assault even if the victim can’t afford a high prices private attorney and many of their suggestions to improve police training never come to fruition.
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