It's MLK Day here in America, but I would like to remind you Negroes (I see you Steve Harvey) who believe that we are now "post-racial", that three states (Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi) celebrated Robert E. Lee Day, today. And in some towns across America, folks are upset because they have to give up their Lee parade for that King fellow. Anywhoo, the following incident took place in October of 2015, but the police department involved is just releasing the video because of a previous lawsuit that was filed by the victim.
"Pinned to the ground by officers who kneed and struck him, Lawrence Crosby screamed whatever he could think of to convince them that he was a law-abiding PhD student, not a violent car thief.
“This is my vehicle, sir,” he said, his voice captured by the dashboard-camera video. “I have evidence. . . . I purchased this vehicle Jan. 23, 2015, from Libertyville Chevrolet.”
Police released the dash-cam video earlier this week, detailing the half-hour encounter that sparked a civil lawsuit from Crosby and a discussion about race and policing in this city of 75,000, just north of Chicago.
The video includes footage from the dash cam of one of the officers involved in the altercation. But it’s also synced with video of a personal dash cam Crosby kept running in his car.
On that night in October 2015, Crosby was headed to Northwestern University, where he was studying for his doctoral degree in civil engineering.
But something was wrong with the molding on his car, so he pulled out a metal bar to try to fix the strip on the roof, he says on the video.
A woman passing by saw him — a black man, wearing a hoodie, with some kind of bar pressed up against a car.
She picked up the phone and called 911, telling the dispatcher she thought she was witnessing a car break-in.
“He had a bar in his hand, and it looked like he was jimmying the door open,” she told the dispatcher.
When Crosby drove off, the woman followed his Chevrolet and relayed information about his location to police.
Crosby was on the phone as he drove, and communicated his growing unease. He realized the situation could look suspicious to a passerby and hoped it didn’t escalate.
“It was a little bit dark,” he says to someone while on the phone, captured on video. “You know how it is with black people — they think we’re always trying to do something wrong.”
He noticed the car following him, and told the person on the other end of the phone that he’s going to head to a place where he’ll be safe.
“I think this person is still following me,” he says. “I think they’re trying to play some games. I’m about to go to the police station now.”
He never makes it. Two blocks from the police station, an officer pulls behind his car and puts on his blue lights.
Crosby stops the car in the driveway of a church, and slowly gets out facing the officers, hands in the air.
He begins to explain, but the officers order him to keep his hands up. Others scream at him to get on the ground.
He turns and, in an instant, five officers sprint toward him. They drive him back several feet, kneeing him to force him to the ground and striking him with open hands to make him comply, a police spokesman said later.
“Stop resisting,” an officer yells as another strikes Crosby’s thigh.
“I’m cooperating. I’m cooperating,” Crosby replies.
He continues to explain that the car is his, where he got it from and when. He attends Northwestern and is a civil engineering PhD, he says. He was just trying to fix his car.
He asks the officers why he’s being handcuffed; they say they have to figure out
who the car belongs to.
They determine it’s his, but he was still arrested and charged with disobeying officers and resisting arrest. A judge later threw out the charges, Crosby’s attorney Tim Touhy, told the Chicago Tribune.
The officers were never charged or disciplined. The Evanston Police Department has defended their actions.
Crosby, who couldn’t be reached for comment Saturday, filed a civil lawsuit in 2016.
Evanston Alderman Brian Miller, who is running for mayor, told The Washington Post he’s been outraged about the incident ever since he saw the video months ago with the rest of the city council.
“There’s underlying problems in our town that we’re not admitting,” he said. “There’s a true desire that people have — they want to want to address these problems and actually solve them. But we don’t want to necessarily admit that we have these problems.” [Source]
Nope, because we are "post-racial" now, and having a day dedicated to MLK proves it, right?
Don’t all of us have one Father? Didn’t one God create us?” (Malachi 2:10).
