Many community members of Clayton County, Georgia are expressing their outrage after a video went viral of teens being held at gunpoint by a police officer. Despite a statement from the police department, people are still demanding change within the force, saying the incident is not isolated.
The clip of the incident was shared to Instagram, and it starts with the officer already in the middle of stopping the teens. The caption for the video says that the teens were “shadow boxing” near a convenience store and then cut through the neighborhood where the police interaction apparently took place.
In the video, the teens stand in the grass with their hands over their heads facing an officer.
Cops said they later got another call saying the teens were now in the parking lot, playing with a gun and fighting. Once a description was given, the police statement said an officer began patrolling the area before stopping the group of teens that they said matched the description.
When the officer went back to the store where the 911 call was placed and looked over the surveillance video, it showed the teens were playing and tossing what looked like a gun to each other. However, the group told the cops that it was a BB gun and they took the cop to the bushes where they tossed the item. The cop said it was indeed a BB gun.
“When I posted that video yesterday so many people from Clayton County began (direct messaging) me saying, ‘that happened to me. I was innocent. I didn’t do anything.’ That’s the problem,” she said. “If there was no problem and the policing was great the community would not have feared in the way that they did and intervened in the way that they did. It’s history.”
Folks on social media expressed similar sentiments with Mary-Pat C. Hector, Youth Director of the National Action Network, tweeting, “For those asking, Clayton County DOES HAVE A POLICE ISSUE. You can say what you want, those boys did NOTHING ILLEGAL. What transpired on that video was one incident. However, everyone in GA knows ‘YOU DON’T WANT TO BE PULLED OVER IN CLAYTON COUNTY.’”
Rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris also showed up at a press conference expressing community concerns over the incident.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBgEKLahDeo/
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Residents Say Clip Of Cops Pulling Gun On Teens Isn’t ‘Isolated Incident’ Amid Police Statement was originally published on newsone.com