In May 2019, 46-year-old Aaron Bowman tried to explain that he was a dialysis patient to the Louisiana troopers surrounding him at a traffic stop.
But what happened next left him with a broken wrist, three broken ribs, and nine staples in his head.
Officer Jacob Brown struck Bowman several times in the head with an aluminum flashlight typically used to shatter glass. And Bowman wasn’t that officer’s only victim.
Since 2015, Brown has 23 use-of-force cases under his belt - the vast majority involving Black people. In 2020, he joked about beating another Black man in a group chat with other officers, saying, “He gonna be sore tomorrow for sure … LMAO.”
Brown also purposefully miscategorized the footage of Bowman’s beating as a “citizen encounter?” But, unlike most publicized brutality victims, Bowman lived – and could eventually see himself on video.
“I kept thinking I was going to die that night,” Bowman cried in an interview. “It was like reliving it all over again. By watching it, I broke down all over again. I don’t want nobody to go through that.”
Bowman fortunately survived his nightmare with police, but they tried to hide his footage, and even charged HIM with battery and “resisting arrest.” They say we can’t get justice because people are already dead, but this system clearly can’t serve justice when we’re alive either.