Michigan Cops Detain Black Teen, Claiming He 'Looked' Guilty
Michigan Cops Handcuff, Detain Black Teen, Claiming He 'Looked' Guilty
Sometimes — most of the time, probably — racial profiling is just a cop deciding to personally slide the scale of what constitutes probable cause when encountering a Black person they just want to stop and search because they are there.
This appears to be the case for 16-year-old Jeremiah Spearman, who, according to his mother and video footage of a police stop, was unjustly handcuffed and detained by police in Battle Creek, Michigan, while he was walking home earlier this month.
This week, Jeremiah’s mother, Marticia Spearman, told Atlanta Black Star that her son was profiled and hassled by police because he’s a “Black boy” who was “walking through the hood,” and a white cop believed he had a weapon, because, well, it just doesn’t take much for cops to think such things when Black people, especially young, Black men, are trying their best to mind their own business.
First, let’s get into what police bodycam footage shows of the stop that reportedly took place on June 14.
Video footage shows a police officer, who had pulled over on the side of the road, and began shouting at Jeremiah, who didn’t appear to be doing anything out of the ordinary.
“Come here. You’re not in trouble. What’s going on?” the officer yelled, as the teen appeared to keep walking. Then he’s stopped by other officers.
“What am I being detained for? I’m walking home,” Jeremiah can be heard saying.
“Put your hands behind your back,” an officer tells the teen, while other officers search him and find a pocket knife, which Jeremiah told them he had.
Despite complying with their orders, Jeremiah was placed in handcuffs.
“Someone call my mom! This is the second time,” he yelled.
It’s already egregious enough that police officers handcuffed a 16-year-old who was literally just walking, but the excuses they gave for why they needed to do so only indicated one thing: cops are just calling any old thing probable cause in order to justify what is essentially just simply stop and frisk.
From Atlanta Black Star:
The video then shows four of Jeremiah’s family members asking the officer why they handcuffed him. He said when he saw Jeremiah, he saw him clutching his crotch.
The officer then said he had probable cause to detain the teenager because he didn’t know if he had a gun on him.
“What is the crime he committed?” a family member asked. “I heard no crime.”
The officer then pulled Jeremiah’s aunt aside and explained again what had happened.
“He had a pocketknife on him, and he got very nervous,” the officer said. “He is exhibiting so many signs of committing crimes.”
“He’s a kid, he’s only 16 years old,” Jeremiah’s aunt said.
Atlanta Black Star obtained the police report from the incident. The reporting officer’s name was redacted.
“Should note that through my training and experience, I know that when a subject clutches their hand to their body after seeing the police is a characteristic of carrying or concealing a weapon,” the officer wrote. “Also, through my training and experience, I know that people who wear masks and conduct this behavior are trying to conceal their identity.”
The officer claimed in the report that the teen was wearing a sheisty. However, Jeremiah’s face is blurred in the video.
So, a Black kid was “exhibiting so many signs of committing crimes” by — *checks notes*— clutching his body and being nervous around cops, who then immediately demonstrated why he had reason to feel nervous around them.
“They racially profiled my son because he was walking through the hood. As a Black boy, with his hands in his pants, he had to have a gun on him,” Marticia told Atlanta Black Star.
“You’re not going to do that to my son. My son don’t do nothing wrong,” she continued. “He just walks. I don’t have a car, so when they want to go somewhere, they walk.”
Of course, Battle Creek Chief of Police Shannon Bagley defended the officers, telling Atlanta Black Star that the first officer’s “decision to stop and briefly detain the individual was appropriate,” and that his “approach was calm and focused on resolving the situation safely.”
But, again, what situation?
The officer who stopped Jeremiah claimed the teen “continued to refuse to speak to me and was not being cooperative.”
“The de-escalation technique did not work, and he was detained in a set of handcuffs for the duration of the stop in order to protect everyone involved,” he said.
But protect everyone from what? What was the so-called “de-escalation technique” for? The teen was walking. There is nothing in the video that suggests anything nefarious, other than a bunch of cops stretching what it means for a person to behave suspiciously, as if they were guilty of some invisible crime only a cop could see.
Spearman said she is now working to get legal representation to file a claim against the police department, and she’s demanding the release of video footage of the full interaction between police and her son.
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Michigan Cops Handcuff, Detain Black Teen, Claiming He 'Looked' Guilty was originally published on newsone.com
