Through our decades of news coverage - one constant has been complaints of police brutality. We don't cover this social plague nearly as much as we used to - and we'd like to think that is because there are fewer cases of such gross abuses.
But, we'd be fooling ourselves to say that, because the truth is that there's a secret war happening below the surface of our polite social discourse about community policing and that famous fix-all multi sectoral approach. And it's a war that has been waged for years - between brutal and just plain chancey cops who operate in the shadows of lawless impunity - and the powerless people they take advantage of, people with no recourse to the law.
Sadly, it is a part of the rites of passage for many young black men on the Southside. And that was brought into sharp focus yesterday when the cops casually picked up a 16 year old at the corner od Dean Street and Amara Avenue. He had just stepped out of his girlfriend's house to go across the street to Kickdown Fence when the cop scooped him up. He and his father came to tell us what happened next. Because the victim is a minor, we have blurred both their faces.
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"So, the police man saw me. They drove past the first time and they came around. When they came around they parked the car far from me. Then, two heavy set police officers came to me, grabbed me in my shirt and walked me towards the car. When they walked me towards the car, the two at the back, one behind the passenger and one behind the driver, they started to "push pain" on me, so I asked them if they could please call my father, because my father doesn't know anything that is happening, and you all are beating me up. The man said, we don't need to call your father at all, because we aren't going to the station, we will take this right so. Then they drove me towards the Port area where it was dark, dark and no one could see me and four of them started to beat me."
Jules Vasquez
"Four men started to beat you?"
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"Yes, sir. Four policemen. And then I asked them, sir, what are you all beating me for? He said they have a cycle that went missing and somebody told us that you are the one who carried the cycle. So I said, you can't carry that to court. So the man told me better I shut up my mouth and four of them started beating me up again. For a whole hour, from after 6:00 to after 7:00. We left from back there, because when we got back in the car, I looked at their phone, and I saw it said 7:00 o'clock. So I said in my mind, what will they do now? So they picked me up and they carried me back out of the Port area and they carried me between Mayflower and Banak Street and they told me let me find my way from there, take my bike, and let me walk. So when they finished that, I ran straight to Lucky Star 2, saw a policeman I know from the CYDP area and asked him to assist me with a call and the man said no problem, he can do that. So he called my father, and I explained to my father what happened."
Jules Vasquez
"Did they make any threats against you?"
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"They told me, ahm, if they want right now they call into the station, say how I ran away, and they just put two bullets in my head, or in my foot."
Jules Vasquez
"At that point did you fear for your life?"
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"Yes sir."
Jules Vasquez
"Is it the first time something like this has happened to you?"
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"No sir. The first time when something like this happened they took me to four miles though the Tapir area and four police beat up me and my friend the same way."
Jules Vasquez
"How are those big men so chancey? You can't weigh more than 130 pounds."
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"They are way bigger than my father. Big in their body. And tall, tall, tall, four of them on me one. Then when we were in the car, one of them put their foot underneath the bottom of the seat, and put his foot on top of my head and put pressure on it, because when they first started to beat me, I called out, "help, help," then they saw that, they saw the lady watch back, so they rolled up all the windows and then they started just beating up me."
Jules Vasquez
"Now, I always say, nobody noh stone empty mango tree. I have young people who work here who don't get caught up like this. Explain to me why you believe they are targeting you."
Voice of: 16 Year old victim
"They target me because the people that my brother hangs with do those stuff, so they think I do those stuff too. So he picked me up, because he doesn't like my brother for nothing."
Father of: 16 Year old Victim
"And they hurt me by threatening my son's life, by doing what they said they did last night, which I wasn't even there to see. That hurt me off the bat. I sat down at that hospital from 8:00 pm and I wasn't even thinking "ignorant". Because that is the reason why people ahwo are humble start getting ignorant. That is the reason why people who are humble start to change. Because they start think, if no one is thinking about you, why aren't you thinking about my own? This is my kid. And I have feelings. And I surely know he has feelings when he started to take that pain. I wasn't even around, so that hurt me big time. Why police have to be beating minors like they have no sense and then play like they don't know what they did? I count, what, 7 hours already? And I have not gotten an officer to tell me we had your son, this is what happened, this is what happened and we threw him at Banak. So, he is one of those dogs, right? You just throw him at Banak, and somebody was supposed to say, oh he's in a gang, let us shoot him down there. So when he gets shot down there, he was straying, that is the first thing everyone would say. The media would say he is straying and he went to Banak and he got shot. Nobody is retarded, Mr Jules. And the way how I see they set up their game and how they do things to people, it's wrong and they are doing it everyday to other people who are different people, with different calibre, people who are on on a lower "mento" who don't know how to come around doing things, or saying things so then they get away with it every single day, because I am not taking up for them, I don't have time for that, but I am being a parent, I don't have any time to be playing any BS game and if they are doing wrong to people's children out there they need to understand that they are parents too. These are all fathers who beat my son, off of a "yerri-soh". They still haven't shown me any proof. That was last night, this is this morning and nothing hs come up yet to prove it actually happened. If I as a parent wasn't concerned to come here this was going right underneath the bus, just like that, right underneath the bus again."
They have made a complaint to the Professional Standards Branch and we will be following up with the commissioner at his next availability.
