(New York) New Jersey police and justice have launched an “internal” investigation after a viral video was released showing two officers breaking up a brawl between two black and white teens, but violently and uniquely challenging the young black man.
Posted on February 17
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, denounced “what appears to be separate treatment on the basis of race.”
In a video posted by the Storyful platform that has been shown on US television since Wednesday, a violent fight broke out between two teenagers in a shopping center in Bridgewater Township, a suburb of New York.
One is black and the other is white. Eyewitnesses filmed the scene last weekend.
About ten seconds later, two uniformed police officers, a woman and a man, arrived behind the teens and brutally separated them. But while the policeman violently arrests the black youth on the floor, his colleague makes the white teenager sit on the sofa, exchange a few words and go to lend a helping hand to control the black youth.
Then we saw the policewoman squatting with her knee at shoulder level and the nape of the neck, while the officer tied his hands.
The boy told ABC that two police officers “pushed him to the ground” and that “the guy (was) put his knee on his back before he started putting handcuffs on him.
” trust ”
“Then the woman came and put her knee on my upper back and started helping to tie my hand while (the other teen) sat on the bench watching the whole scene,” he testified, under the first name “Ki.”
There is no picture showing what was left of the arrest or what happened to the white young man who was not arrested.
“We need to build trust between those who enforce the law and the people who serve them,” said Governor Phil Murphy.
Bridgewater Township Police admitted on Facebook that the video “disturbed members of our community” and announced an “internal investigation” with a “request for assistance from the Somerset County District Attorney’s Office,” in Bridgewater County.
In response to a question by AFP on Thursday, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Attorney General’s office confirmed that “its services are working closely with the services of the Somerset County District Attorney who is leading the investigation” and that they should “ensure that thorough, fair and independent investigations are conducted into incidents related to police use.” of strength and behaviour.
And on Wednesday evening, the National Action Network Against Racism, at the forefront of the May 2020 killing of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer who had strangled him with his knee, told the National Action Network that she was “deeply disturbed” by the video that “gives the impression There is an implicit bias in the police response.
