The video below is disturbing. An off duty officer is now under investigation after footage emerged online of the officer assaulting a teenager for walking on his lawn.
Allegedly, the victims friend had just gotten beaten up in a large fight. The beaten and bloody teen, ran away from the fight and ended up sitting on the officers porch to gather himself. The black teen seen pinned by the officer, found his friend sitting on the officers porch and approached in attempt to check on his friend. The victim claims he wanted to call his friends grandmother for help, since his friend was bloody from the fight. Shortly later this video began recording.
If this were your child, would you be ok with this? I particularly take issue with the officer assuming these young teens were trespassing, assuming it's ok to put his hands on this child whom he acknowledges did nothing wrong beyond walk on his lawn, and threatened to kill him. If you wonder why young men have a distrust for police, this might be adding to the problem. Why not ask these teens what's wrong, why are you (the guy who is filming) bleeding? Watch below and let me know what you think.
Via WGNTV
It all started Saturday afternoon when a couple of teenage boys got into a fight with another group of boys. They were able to get away only to find themselves in a totally different and unexpected fight.
"You guys are on my f---ing property!" an off-duty Lansing police officer says in the video while pinning 15-year-old Jordan Brunson to the ground with his knee, his hand on the boy's neck.
"Let me go!" Jordan says in the video.
"No, you are on my f---ing property. I could f---ing kill you," the officer says.
Jordan's friend was shooting the cell phone video, which is only a few minutes long.
"Tell your friend to come here right now," the officer says.
At one point in the video, a woman walks outside the home and says, "You guys came to the wrong house."
Moments earlier, Jordan says he was trying to help his friend who was sitting on the officer's porch. He had been beaten up pretty bad in a fight earlier Saturday afternoon. WGN talked to Jordan at his home Monday night.
"I was examining him. I was going to go tell his grandmother," Jordan said. He then says the officer came out of nowhere and grabbed them both.
WGN reporter Erik Runge: "You never heard the officer ask what you doing there?"
Jordan: "No."
Runge: "Did you ever heard the officer say get off of my property."
Jordan: "No."
Runge: "Did he ever identify himself as a cop?"
Jordan: "No."
Jordan's aunt Lashawnya Brunson posted the video that Jordan's friend recorded to Facebook. She says the officer's behavior is outrageous.
"If he wasn't an officer, just a regular man, would they do the same thing? No, he'd be locked up," she said.
On Monday night, two police officers sat in an unmarked car keeping an eye on the officer's home. No one came do the door when WGN knocked. Reporter Erik Runge left a note asking for his side of the story. So far, he hasn't called.
The Lansing Police Department released as statement that says, in part:
"An off-duty Lansing police officer, outside on his personal property, became involved when he was approached by two other subjects involved in the fight. One of the juveniles had visible minor injuries, and the other was temporarily detained for further investigation until the arrival of on-duty officers."
See Jordan, the teen in the video, side of the story below.
Photo Credit: Video