And if you're looking to work off the evidence of a cheese habit you may want to schedule a morning run but you might think twice if you live on the southside, where one resident says that profiling is alive, well, and being carried out by out of town cops.
Football Coach Gellis young says, it happened to him when he was pepper-sprayed on his morning run.
Gellis had stopped to have a quick word with a friend, not exactly regulation behavior by quarantine standards but not, he thought, an offense that warranted such a drastic measure. This afternoon he spoke to Cherisse Halsall about the abuse he endured and the evidence he still can't get.
He's a coach and Community worker who can be seen most mornings running up Cemetery road all the way to the pound yard bridge and then down Vernon street. But last Friday Gellis Young's morning run took an unpleasant turn.
Steve Gellis Young, Sports Coach
"I'm running, sweaty, sweaty, and I see a green, grey police vehicle coming up on my side so the officer looked out and said eh where's your mask? So I stopped, I saw the vehicle haul up and stop and I mentioned to the officer, officer, I'm doing running and physical workout the requirements state that you don't need now mask when you're doing running or riding of bicycle doing a workout, you understand, so I saw the policeman come out of the vehicle, open the back of the police vehicle zip open a pink knapsack and take out a thing that looks like a pepper spray can out of the knapsack. So now I stand up because I'm trying to be nice to the policeman because, I figure now they're trying to abstract me, so while standing up there the officer came into my face again and stated to point, I tell you where is your mask? I said to the officer I'll tell you again the requirements state that you don't need a mask for running or riding a bicycle when you're doing a physical workout. Well mommy the officer came up into my face with the spray can, this is the third time now he's asking me again, where's your mask."
And it went from animated question to an all-out attack:
Steve Gellis Young, Sports Coach
"Now, you know the officer just waited until I blinked like this so and as I blinked and I opened my eyes brother the officer had the pepper spray just spraying me in my two eyes, my nose, my mouth. While he did that and I'm trying to catch my breath now, staggering backward I told a youth who was out there in his yard watching the thing as it unfolded please take me to the pipe so that I can wash out my eyes because my eyes are burning and I can't breathe well. You know the officers they got right into their vehicle slammed the doors, and rode right off like they didn't do anything, like a rogue cop."
We verified his account from a nearby business' surveillance video - but they didn't want it shared publicly. Young says he felt victimized and profiled by the cops.
Steve Gellis Young, Sports Coach
"I feel like the two Hispanic officers in the vehicle, they come from villages and they come and work in the night and go back home in the morning and I feel like they're just unlawful cops and bad minded and I feel like they're racist too just the way that they approached me and they dealt with me. I'm making an appeal to the Minister of police. I need you to come you and Chester Williams the COMPOL because he is a very educated man."
"I got no grievances, sir. I'm inviting two of you to come and we go inside and you watch the tape of what really went on and if the police are in the wrong, brother you need to discipline those officers because those officers are out there giving police a bad name and a bad reputation out there."
Young says he has worked with many policemen and even volunteered with C.Y.D.P.
