14-Year-Old Arrested for Playing with Puppy While Black. Seriously.

[HarveyDarkey]

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 3:09pm

Last week down in Florida, 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian was playing in the water with a friend at the beach when a Miami-Dade police officer approached him to ask what he was doing, misinterpreting their play for a fight. Tremaine walked away from the officers, carrying his new puppy in his arms. After observing his allegedly "dehumanizing stares" and clenched fists, the officer used his ATV to chase Tremaine down and throw him to the ground in a chokehold so intense that the teenager wet himself during the incident. It was his mother who caught part of the incident on camera.

When I was 14, a security guard reprimanded me for leaping back and forth between the different colored tiles on the floor at the mall while I waited for my mom to finish some errands. He seemed to think I was disrupting the peace (if such a thing can be found in a mall); I thought he was a grumpy and mean grownup. I glared back at him and jumped to another tile, then sulked off to find my mom. And that was the end of our interaction. As it should have been.

Tremaine's story, much unlike my own, has yet to end. Outrageously, he is now being charged with a felony for resisting arrest with violence, and a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct. Notably, both alleged offenses apparently occurred after the teen was pursued and tackled by the police officer—which begs the question why he was pursued and tackled in the first place.

But the better question may be why did Tremaine's story end with a violent and traumatic arrest, while I was allowed to go about my business? Both of us were messing around like kids do, and both of us (allegedly) shot a dirty look at an authority figure. But as a white teen, I had my skin color on my side. Tremaine, who is Black, is now one more kid on a growing list of Black and Brown kids and young adults around the country whose actions have been ruthlessly criminalized because of their skin color. (17-year-old Trayvon Martin, 5-year-old Michael Davis, 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot, 7-year-old Wilson Reyes, and 18-year-old Ramarley Graham are just a few that come to mind.) However chilling it may be to some of us, this narrative has become alarmingly commonplace. Indeed, such incidents have become so routine that one recent article focused more attention on the welfare of the puppy than on the young man, with a headline reading "6-week-old pit bull injured by Miami-Dade police in incident near Haulover Beach."

http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/14-year-old-arrested-playing-puppy-while-black-seriously

[niyad]

1. I was just wondering about that case, and if there were any updates. thanks for the information.

[gollygee]

2. This belongs at the top of the page for a while

so I will K&R

[Xipe Totec]

3. K&R nt

[Progressive dog]

4. Do you know if the ACLU is helping? nt

[HarveyDarkey]

5. No I don't, sorry

but this is on their web page, so that's a promising sign.

[uppityperson]

6. If a cop is so threatened by a stare, feels "dehumanized", maybe he should look at

himself and see how humane he is acting. Good lord. K&R

[ReRe]

10. Dude needs to take a look....

.... at the "Man in the Mirror".

[limpyhobbler]

7. that must have been a very dehumanizing stare. nt

[Thor_MN]

18. hmmm....

http://derosaworld.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c7c7d53ef01543601a4b0970c-500wi

[AAO]

20. Doesn't take much against a subhuman.

[DeSwiss]

8. Dupe - K&R

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017122028

[zeeland]

9. Tonight is the anniversary of Medgar Evers death.

Rachael just did a beautiful tribute. Then to read this happening decades later.

Makes me ill.

[HarveyDarkey]

11. That she did

makes me ill too.

[b.durruti]

12. Yay cops! -nt-

[drm604]

13. Please tell me you're being sarcastic.

[b.durruti]

14. Of course. -nt-

[drm604]

15. Okay. It's hard to tell sometimes.

We get some strange posters on here.

[uponit7771]

16. My son is 4, what's a shame is I'll STILL .. STILL have to have the "talk" with him

...and that alone is shitty

[annabanana]

26. I am so sorry uponit..

I wish I could fix that.

[truedelphi]

29. Me too. I want the world to be fair. And I friggin'

Can't understand a world in which kids are being arrested, shackled, condemned for trumped up charges, force fed Psyche meds while in jail, and released only if they continue to take those drugs. And for some - they are never released from jail!

Harry Belafonte, (who I wish had run for Prez in '08 and '12, and won both times), is devoting his time to helping such kids. He is claiming we have a new slavedom upon us - it is the incarceration of young people of color. And some of these 'young people" are all of five years old!

[IdaBriggs]

17. That was a POWERFUL STARE - did energy beams shoot out like a mutant?

I have seen that in movies - that kid needs to learn to wear protective goggles!!!

(Do I really need to put in a sarcasm tag here?)

[chknltl]

23. Damned mutants been getting all upity!

Wouldn't surprise me if they've been secretly meeting and scheming to take over our government! I even heard this elderly lady whistleblower try to tell Sen. McCain that Barrack Obama is a mutant once. Tragically mutants took over her voice and forced her to say 'a rab' instead of 'a mutant'. Damned mutants!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. "Dehumanizing"?

Classic racist logic. To feel like their supremacy is under assault from a subhuman refusing to see them as the true offspring of the very WHITE Adam and Eve.

[Scootaloo]

28. Well, you can't say "he got uppity" in the report, so you have to think of SOMETHING...

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

21. Let me get this straight, he was a threat to the officer

so the officer had to chase him so he could be close enough to be a threat to the officer, yeah I get it now.
The officer was teaching him respect for the law, I wonder if it worked.

[arthritisR_US]

22. Cops like that make me vomit!

All of the aforementioned cases in the OP make me sick and see red. When will this dehumanizing shit end? For an intelligent species we sure have some ignorant f*cks!

[annabanana]

25. kicking for the ACLU

I hope that all DUers are card carrying members..

[pacalo]

27. His mother needs signatures on this petition (change.org)...

https://www.change.org/petitions/drop-charges-against-my-son-tremaine-who-was-attacked-by-police-while-holding-a-puppy?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=26523&alert_id=NbbjKzNQMb_ccqUYgcaWf

[truedelphi]

30. Thanks. Glad to feel I can do some little

Something to help out.