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Originally published on May 30, 2013
Tremaine McMillian is a 14-year-old who was accosted and brutally choked by police officers in Florida while holding his puppy, and socializing with family and friends at the beach.
Police threw Tremaine to the ground and placed him in a chokehold so intense it caused him to urinate on himself. The cops then handcuffed him and slapped him with a felony "resisting arrest with violence" charge, as well as a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
Send a letter now and tell prosecutors to drop the charges.
Police claim they assaulted Tremaine because of his "dehumanizing stares" and clenched fists. Tremaine maintains that he could not have clenched his fist because he was in fact holding his puppy and feeding it from a bottle.
Either way, the actions of the police are intolerable. There is no reason that multiple police officers with weapons of all sorts at their disposal had to place an unarmed 14-year-old in a brutal chokehold. As a cell phone video of some of the incident clearly shows, Tremaine did not pose a threat to them. Not to mention: he did nothing wrong! He was at the beach socializing with friends and family!
This is just another example of the wanton violence engaged in by police departments across the country. Such brutal conduct is frequently excused by politicians and the media by resorting to racist stereotyping and slander. Young Black males in particular are often targeted and brutalized by police under the pretext of "crime fighting."
The widespread police brutality and racial profiling must stop now!