Off-Duty Officer Almost Kills Black Teenager

An off-duty police officer in an Illinois village pinned a teenager to the ground and threatened him while accusing him of trespassing.

Jordan Brunson, a Black teenager, and his friend were just trying to escape a fight. AThey occasionally ended up on the lawn belonging to a white police officer. As you can guess, this is not a story about help and support.

The video, recorded on Saturday by a friend of the teenager, shows the off-duty officer in his front yard in the village of Lansing, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, wearing civilian clothes, pinning the Black youth to the ground and threatening to kill him.

This guy is a LANSING POLICE 👮🏻 OFFICER & the family can’t get anywhere filing a report on him. So make this go #VIRAL @Complex @WORLDSTAR pic.twitter.com/vBN8JPa7qa

— ⏳J.Newberry⌛️ (@JajuanNewberry) June 27, 2017

 

“The video speaks for itself,” Andrew M. Stroth, a lawyer representing Jordan and his family said on Tuesday. “You have a white police officer who threatened to kill a 15-year-old African-American minor, and to me, it’s just a complete lack of judgment by a member of the police using unnecessary and excessive force.”

“I’m not involved in this,” the 15-year-old said as an off-duty officer detained him. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Jordan’s aunt, LaShawnya Brunson, 42, said,  “Of course I was disgusted. I was upset. I was angry. I was confused, like why did you do this to this juvenile?”  She added, “But my anger intensified when I realized it was a cop.”

“I want him suspended,” she said, referring to the officer. “That was unnecessary abuse. So something needs to happen.”

Even off-duty officers pose a threat to Black population as their racist attitudes dominate their lives and make them feel impune at any time of day and night.