United States: police charged with racial discrimination after a fight between teenagers
The New Jersey State Police crest (illustrative image).
AP - Matt Rourke
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Police again suspected of racial discrimination in the United States.
This time it is the images of the intervention of two agents to break up a fight between a young white man and a young black man who raise questions.
An investigation has been opened.
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With our correspondent in Washington,
Guillaume Naudin
It takes place last weekend in a shopping center in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, a suburb of New York.
Two teenagers, a white and a black, berate each other before coming to blows and fighting violently with their fists.
After about ten seconds of fighting, two local police officers intervene to separate them.
The white man is asked to sit on a sofa, while the agents tackle the black man to the ground to handcuff him.
The video, filmed by witnesses, ends there, but we now know that the young black man will remain shackled for about thirty minutes, without knowing exactly what happens to the young white man, who has not not been arrested.
Governor's reaction
The video is picked up by the televisions and it makes people react.
The Governor of New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy, narrowly re-elected last November, denounces “
what appears to be a separate treatment based on race
”.
He wants to improve “
trust between those who enforce the law and the people they serve
”.
Although an investigation is still gathering the facts about this incident, I'm deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment in this video.
We're committed to increasing trust between law enforcement and the people they serve.
https://t.co/ck9yCXMmL0
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) February 16, 2022
The National Action Network
anti-racism association
, at the forefront of the May 2020 murder of
African American George Floyd
by a white policeman who had suffocated him with his knee, says it is "
very disturbed
".
Bridgewater Township police say the video has "
upset members of the community
".
An internal investigation has been opened with a request for assistance from the county attorney.
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