[Peace-discuss] What happened Friday night?

[Brian Dolinar]

Here's a write up from the investigative work of Martel Miller, with the
help of Chris Evans.
We will be taking up this issue at the Champaign City Council meeting,
Tuesday, April 3 at 7pm.

Friday night, March 30, a 17 year-old black youth was confronted by police
in Douglass Park.
An altercation ensued, ending with the youth being heavily pepper sprayed,
an ambulance arriving, and him being taken to the hospitol.  This is the
victim's story:

According to the victim, the officer that approached the 17 year old was NOT
the officer that attacked the victim. The attacking officer came from
another squad car and acted on her own provocation without telling the
victim why he was being attacked and apprehended. This happened in front of
the nine-year old and 15 year-old. Still not explained is why the female
officer needed to use force in the first place. When she attacked the 17
year-old, his "hoodie" got caught in a chain link fence, and other officers
joined in the fray, and the youth was trying to get his shirt unhooked off
the fence. The victim was NOT resisting. Other officers piled on top of him,
and it was then he was punched in the face causing the bleeding. While he
was piled upon and subdued already, it was then that the officers used
pepper spray directly into his face and nostrils.
According to the victim, he was punched in the face, there were knees into
his neck and back while he screamed that he was having difficulty breathing.
It was then when they pepper sprayed him. The nine-year old and 15 year-old
watched all this. One other youth watching was the one who ran down to Gina
Jackson's house, which may have stopped the police brutality from escalating
further and saved the young man's life.
Questions from the community are why are these officers still on active duty
and will there be some suspensions? Chief Finney promised nearly 3 years
ago, that it was his priority to improve relations with the black community
and police. It looks like we have a long way to go.

-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070402/de6f31f3/attachment.html