Police Brutality Accusations After CA Teen Tackled for Jaywalking
Stockton police officers now face accusations of police brutality after a video of a teenager being tackled just for jaywalking went viral on Wednesday, September 16th.
“I felt traumatized,” victim Emilio Mayfield told CBS Sacramento. “I was beaten and slammed on the floor.”
The video, shot by YouTube user Edward Avendaño, said he pulled out his phone and began recording after he saw a police officer stop Mayfield for allegedly jaywalking. A bystander can be heard at the beginning of the video yelling, “He’s a f*****g kid …. for jaywalking? He didn’t do nothing wrong. That is a child.”
The officer in the video uses his police baton to push Mayfield into a landscaped perimeter. When Mayfield pushes back, so the officer yells “Stop resisting arrest!” As Mayfield continues to push back at the baton, the officer swings at his face, striking him hard enough for Mayfield to grab his face in pain. The officer orders Mayfield to get on the ground as a crowd gathers, along with at least 8 other police officers. The police officers surround the boy and slam him into the concrete ground.
The police brutality video has been viewed at least 400,000 times on YouTube so far.
The teenager was transported to a Stockton, CA police station, where he was cited for trespassing and resisting arrest. He was then released to his mother.
A preliminary internal investigation suggests the officers were acting within Stockton municipal code and the actions do not qualify as police brutality. Their police report cites the numerous signs near the bus stations warning pedestrians not to walk or stand in the bus only lanes. “An Officer asked him to use the crosswalk for his own safety but the suspect ignored the officer,” according to a Stockton Police Department report. “Due to the continued safety hazard, the officer attempted to detain the suspect by telling him to stop.”
The video, however, has many viewers raging against continued police brutality in the United States.
“The kid got stopped for ‘jaywalking’ when he barely stepped out of the bus,” wrote Avendaño on Facebook in reference to the events in the video. “He was 2 feet away from the sidewalk when the cop stopped him for ‘jaywalking.’ The cop was telling him to take a [seat] but the teen kept walking to his bus … [the officer] didn’t have to hit the kid with the baton & no need to call about 20 cops. And as you can see his body cam is on the floor.”
“The behavior of the officer was totally out of line,” Stockton NAACP president Bobby Bivens told CBS Sacramento. “There’s no reason for him to attack this young man as he did.”
Mayfield’s family filed a formal complaint on Thursday, September 17th, regarding the police brutality toward their son. There is no word yet on whether the family will file a personal injury lawsuit. The Stockton police department may formally charge Mayfield as an adult with a criminal violation for resisting arrest.
