Teen wants apology after officer pulls gun

[The Straight Story]

Columbus (OH):

Xzavier Brandon went from a 16-year-old honor student to a felony suspect in a matter of minutes during a walk to school last month.

“A gun was pointed at me and handcuffs were put on me, and that’s everything that’s done to a criminal,” Brandon said in an interview last week.

Exempt from final exams because of good test scores at New Albany High School, Brandon was walking his usual route to preseason football practice on May 28 when a resident of Hilltop Trail Drive thought he looked suspicious. A house in the Northeast Side neighborhood had been broken into between 8:30 a.m. and 12:40 p.m., when the homeowner returned and discovered the crime.

About the same time, Mike Eberts, who lives in the neighborhood, saw Brandon walking by and called 911.

“There’s someone walking down the street who might have something to do with this,” he told the Columbus police dispatcher. “It may just be a coincidence that he’s just walking by, but it sure looks suspicious to me.” He told the dispatcher he would follow the youth in his car.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/30/teen-wants-apology-after-officer-pulls-gun.html



http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/30/teen-wants-apology-after-officer-pulls-gun.html

[think]

1. Is an apology too much to ask for handcuffing & pulling a gun on an innocent victim?

[Gravitycollapse]

2. Walking while black. I hope that paranoid 911 caller feels like shit.

[lib87]

9. Sadly, I would Bet He Does Not.

The neighbor probably thinks he was doing the right thing by calling 911 on a kid who was walking while Black in his Ohio neighborhood.

[JDPriestly]

18. Incredible.

In some ways, we have made so much progress with regard to ending discrimination based on race, and then things like this happen and you have to wonder why some just don't get it.

[malaise]

26. Brandon is lucky he didn't run into another

George Zimmerman

[Jedi Dale]

3. Gun happy cops nothing new!

I believe it's an abuse of power! Consider yourself lucky. Had you been in Reno, you probably would have been shot. If not dead, then after being stablized going to jail
I believe ALL law enforcement needs civilian oversight. Without it, "absolute power corrupts absolutely!"

[Suich]

7. Welcome to DU, Jedi Dale!

Hope you have fun here!

We got to 90 degrees today...how about you?

[Nanjing to Seoul]

12. And the defenders of gun happy guns and stupid police action I call "badge sniffers."

If George Carlin can call today's professional parents "diaper sniffers," I felt I could change it a little.

Welcome to DU.

[reusrename]

34. Welcome to DU!

He is a big kid, no doubt about it, but if a cop in uniform needs to pull a gun on him then he ought to get into some other line of work.

[defacto7]

4. "but it sure looks suspicious to me"

Why? Why did he "look" suspicious? What does suspicious mean to this guy?

Hey cops! 20 real heroes died today because they were incredibly brave and honorable. Put your god damned guns away and get some smarts. Be brave for a change rather than hiding behind weapons and stupidity. Then, maybe then, you will begin to gain some respect again.

[arely staircase]

5. he looks "suspicious"

where have I heard that before?

[Scootaloo]

6. "He looked suspicious"

"I'll follow him in my car"

I've heard this story before, somewhere.

[DeSwiss]

8. Too many fucking cops.

- K&R

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Not as many as there used to be. They used to be at intersections directing traffic.

[Oldtimeralso]

10. K & R

I had a gun pulled by the police when they ran the number on my handicapped parking permit and transposed the number. One officer told me to give him the permit, my drivers license and the registration for the car. I told him that the registration was in the glove box so not to startle him. I retrieved the info and turned to see his partner with his gun drawn crouching behind the opposite side of the squad car.

They ran the number again and found out that I was not violating the law and the permit was valid, not a fake as I was initial accused of when they pulled up behind my car. They did not offer an apology and when I asked why not, they answered that they were only doing their job.

I reported the incident to their captain. Never did hear of any action taken nor an apology!

[tblue37]

15. So now being suspected of misusing a freaking

HANDICAPPED permit is justification for cops to escalate to drawing guns on a citizen?

Suppose you really didn't have aright to use the handicap permit. Would even that justiify going to guns?

Cops are freaking crazy these days!

[Nanjing to Seoul]

11. His crimes are as follows:

1: Being black in a white neighborhood
2: Being black period
3: Walking while black
4: Living while black
5: Being tall, built big and black
6: Being young while black
7: Being black and black

Badge sniffers, ready for your defense of the police officer's actions.

HOAs and busybody neighbors suck.

[47of74]

16. And if he had been driving through

Operating while black.

[JI7]

19. wearing sandals with socks

but seriously, i would like to know how the home owner feels or thinks. does he acknowledge why he thought he looked "suspicious" ?

[Nanjing to Seoul]

20. no. but i'm sure it was skin color.

black skin is suspicious.

[JI7]

21. no question it was because he is black

but i wonder if the owner will recognize it. maybe he does but he will excuse his bigotry.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

22. what bigotry? some of my best friends are black.

expect that.

[trumad]

23. snarf

High School athletes fashion....they all wear sandals and black socks.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. Substitute "Indian" for "black" in the article and imagine the outrage.

[Sherman A1]

17. K&R

He most certainly deserves an apology. This is simply getting absurd.

[Shankapotomus]

24. It should be a public apology

with local press there so it is made perfectly clear to everyone the kid is not some criminal and the officer was wrong to do what he did.

[Yo_Mama]

25. Pretty extreme

In the old days, the cops just used to stop you and ask questions. That was when I was a teen, which is lo these nearly four decades ago.

But this is new-style law enforcement, in which we are all treated as extremely dangerous.

Teens who are not in school when school is in session used to be questioned by the cops, esp. if they were in neighborhoods in which crimes were being reported. But handcuffed at the point of a gun?

This type of police behavior is making our country more dangerous. This is why I won't call the cops on anyone I think may be suspicious - I'm afraid the cops will be committing crimes against innocent persons! When you can't trust the cops to ask questions, you are in a bad way, but that's the point we have reached.

[TransitJohn]

27. Walking while black.

Dangerous behavior.


Oh, and why the fuck would it take months to complete an internal affairs investigation when there's no paperwork, and only two people (officer and this young man) to interview? Smells like bullshit.

[CanonRay]

31. Because in two months most will have forgotten

and they will bury this in some bogus report filed on Friday night.

[The Straight Story]

32. Indeed. I remember once incident I was involved in and I met with IA next morning

Case was closed by end of day (involved me, another deputy, and an inmate).

Something seems a tad off here.

[mythology]

28. There isn't enough evidence to say if it's because the kid is black

I'm white and I was waiting outside to be shown an apartment. The guy who was showing it to me was late and I tend to pace when I'm waiting. After viewing the apartment, I was leaving and two plainclothes cops pull me aside because somebody called the cops on me for lurking and being a possible drug dealer. Some people are just irrationally afraid of strangers.

Is it possible that the person who called the cops did so because he or she is racist? Absolutely. But it's also possible that they would have called the police on somebody who was white or Hispanic. There isn't enough information to say either way.

The cops absolutely owe the kid an apology though.

[knitter4democracy]

30. Did they draw a gun on you?

If they just pulled you aside and didn't draw, there ya go.

[yeoman6987]

29. University of virginia female stopped for buying water

Did you guys hear about the ABC police who stopped a woman at the University of Virginia just buying water. They arrested her....She spent a night in jail on FELONY charges. Of course, the charges have been dropped, but I hope she becomes a millionaire. The entire law enforcement needs a reboot.

[penultimate]

33. As a white guy, I've never had a cop pull a gun on me while I was walking down the street

This is even when I was a punk looking teenager. Sure I was stopped a few times here and there, but never did I have a gun pulled on me, nor was I ever handcuffed. The closest thing I've ever had was when I was 16 and skipping school, someone called the police because I was hanging out in front of some complex waiting for my mom to leave to work... The cop came up and asked me why I wasn't in class. He then drove me home and told my mom to make sure I get to school. That's really how this should have played out (except in this case he actually had a legitimate reason to not be in class)