By We’Ced Youth Media
Image via Claudia Gonzalez
Editor’s Note: Last week, video surfaced of an altercation between an off-duty police officer and a 13-year -old boy in Anaheim. Read More
The Black Lives Matter movement is important because it is giving a voice to people who have been oppressed, marginalized, and silenced for too long. Enough is enough. It’s time for the ‘Blue Wall of Silence’ to be torn down. This wall is what enables police brutality
A press release from the police department notes that Lloyd was booked and charged with resisting arrest and riding his bicycle on the sidewalk. His companion, 18-year-old Bryce Snell, was arrested while videotaping the incident and charged with obstruction. In the video, Snell is seen being tackled by an unseen officer later identified by his last name, Avery.
This is why many people know hundreds of Freddie Grays, as his family’s attorney exclaimed at the funeral. And this is why there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Freddie Grays in America – young Black men who grew up in poverty, who attended low performing schools, who lived in contaminated communities, and who now have a hard time finding employment, have had run-ins with the criminal justice system, and are harassed by law enforcement.
If AB 953 passes, it could prevent more parents from having to know the pain Theresa carries. Cops would be held accountable for their actions, and the law would curb racial profiling and patterns of behavior that make police seem like they are above the law.
Knowing that there is a stigma of certain communities in Merced and knowing that there are pockets in the community that are poor or have a strained relationship to police, that says to me that the city doesn’t care as much about these parts of the community because they’re not putting resources into these parts of the community.
Discussions of police misconduct in mainstream and social media outlets have reduced it to a black and white, and decidedly urban issue – African Americans on one side, white officers on the other. New America Media asked youth reporters in rural, and predominantly Latino, areas of California to survey people in their community about how they perceive local law enforcement.
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