Off-Duty Cop Fractures Black Kid’s Skull

An off-Duty Brewerytown cop Body-Slammed 14-Year-Old leaving him with a dangerous trauma.

On May 11, Naji Tribble, a 14-year-old Brewerytown resident, and four of his friends were up to nothing bad. Their curiosity led them to Steelworks Strength Systems new gym making some mess among the visitors.

The boys were told to left the gym and that was what they did. Some man followed them, he gripped Naji by the shirt, threatened him, and called him a “little nigger” repeatedly.

The Black boy complained to his family and all of them including his 19-year-old sister, Nayanda, rushed down the street to deal with the incident.

“The man was still down the street from us,“ says Nayanda, “and when I went over to him, he choked-slammed me to the ground. Next thing I know, he grabs Naji and slams his head to the ground …. I can hear his head hit against the pavement.”

“The police didn’t make matters any better. They escalated the entire situation — I saw the entire thing,” says a neighbor. “After that white man [Furman] said he was a cop, Sgt. Soto called us all ‘motherfuckers’ and said he would ‘lock us all up’ if we didn’t back away from the scene.”

“For the past three weeks, we had to take Naji back and forth to CHOP because he just wasn’t the same,” his mother claims. “He would have minor seizures, stay in the house all day, and not be able to focus in school. My child is very active, and suddenly his behavior changed drastically.”

“The teacher told us he was extremely incoherent and was not speaking English,” his father says. “CHOP finally did a CAT scan on him and it came back that he had a fractured skull. I knew it was something more serious than what they were telling me. He had three major seizures on Wednesday.”

The situation with either on-duty or off-duty cops and African-Americans isn’t getting any better and it’s really frightening to find out what may happen the following day.