On April 17, 2022, an 8-year-old boy was riding his bike on the streets of Syracuse, NY, clutching a bag of Doritos. Suddenly he was knocked to the ground!
Grabbing the boy by the arms, police officers forced him into their car. Why?
They claimed he stole the $3.00 bag of chips. Bystanders tried to deescalate the situation. A man named Kenneth Jackson, who filmed the interaction, even offered to pay for the chips or walk the boy back home.
Instead, police drove off – and when they got to the boy’s house, they presented a whole different story.
The boy’s father, Anthony Weah, initially thought the officers were “friendly.” The police didn’t mention how they’d manhandled his sobbing 8-year-old in front of a horrified audience. But when Weah watched Jackson’s viral video later, he finally saw what really went down.
“Now that’s just another youth that’s scarred by the system,” commented Jackson. Weah is filing a complaint with the police department.
“Today, they done it to my child,” he said. “Tomorrow, they will do the same thing to another kid.”
Protecting our children is harder for us because we live in a world that’s working against their survival. But like Jackson and Weah, we must REFUSE to let police target and traumatize our children. Only a strong Black community will save us!