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Cops Try To Break Teen's Face With Concrete

Ain't that the same jit that got pepper sprayed who he smashing into the pavement? Nothing new to see here...I'm surprised nobody got shot.
 
I can nazi anything wrong with the actions of those kkkops. Shrug.
 
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https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/ne...broward-police-tweet-justiceforlucca-10252484

Parkland Survivors Criticize Broward Police and Tweet #JusticeForLucca After Video of Taravella Teen Goes Viral


Survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School took to Twitter this week to condemn police brutality after a recent video of a Broward Sheriff's deputy slamming a teenager's face to the ground went viral.

The video shows Delucca Rolle, a Tamarac teen, being pepper-sprayed, slammed to the ground, and punched in the head by Broward Dep. Christopher Krickovich before getting arrested outside a McDonald's last Thursday. Rolle and another teen, who is seen already handcuffed in the video, were taken into custody and faced criminal charges including assault of a police officer, resisting arrest, and trespassing. This past Tuesday, the Broward State Attorney's Office announced in a statement it will not file any charges against Rolle.

The incident garnered national attention over the weekend. Celebrities such as former Miami Heat player LeBron James and Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills have called for the deputies to be fired and shared the video with the hashtag #JusticeForLucca on Twitter. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump has taken on the J.P. Taravella student’s case. Crump previously represented the families of slain teens Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

The video has rehashed conversations about the unfair treatment and lack of support minorities receive compared to their white counterparts. Survivors of the Parkland shooting, including student activists Mei-Ling Ho-Shing and David Hogg, have been vocal about this difference and the overpolicing of black youth in their community.

"Right after the shooting, all anyone would talk about is how corrupt Sheriff Israel is," Hogg tweeted three days ago. "Now that police officers are back to beating young men and women [of] color, all those same people are saying how much they support the police. This is just blatant racism and white supremacy."

Advocating for Rolle, Ho-Shing used the hashtag #NeverAgain, which was created by Stoneman Douglas survivors and activists as part of their national movement to advocate for gun control. But this time, she used it to call for an end to police harassment of minorities. "How about this," Ho-Shing wrote, "#NeverAgain do black students fear for their life by those who are supposed to be protecting us."

Hogg also criticized the starkly different reaction from Broward citizens in the aftermath of BSO's interaction with Rolle. "Everyone in Parkland and Broward was calling out local law enforcement a couple of months ago," he tweeted. "But now the black and brown youth are being brutally assaulted in school by the same police 15 [minutes] away... Complete silence."

Last year, Ho-Shing, Hogg, and fellow MSD activist Jaclyn Corin criticized the disproportionate support they received for their efforts compared with student activists in minority communities, Black Lives Matter proponents, and the Dream Defenders.

"We recognize that Parkland received more attention because of its affluence," Corin said during her speech at the March for Our Lives in March 2018. "But we share this stage today and forever with those communities who have always stared down the barrel of a gun."

In a clip from a Saturday meeting with the group Broward Black Elected Officials, recently appointed BSO Sheriff Gregory Tony acknowledged public pressure for the deputy to be fired, but he stated an investigation is needed first.

"That is the most electrifying and dangerous situation for any law enforcement administrator to handle," Tony said. "Anytime a white deputy is involved in contact with using force with a black youth, this thing blows up."

 
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/broward-county-deputy-beats-black-teen.html

Broward County Deputies Assaulted a Black Teen. ‘Accountability’ Is Not Enough.

Video still from footage of a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy assaulting a black teenager, April 2019. Photo: Screenshot via Broward County Sheriff’s Office

The sheriff’s office in Broward County, Florida, has promised to investigate two of its deputies for assaulting a black 15 year old on Thursday. An 18-second video shows the officials — Christopher Krickovich and Sergeant Greg LaCerra — pepper-spraying the teen in the face, banging his forehead against concrete, and punching him on the side of his head. (The teen’s name has not been disclosed in news reports, but he has been identified on social media as “Lucca.”) Footage of the incident has circulated nationally, prompting outraged responses from celebrities and lawmakers alike. Sheriff Gregory Tony tried to assuage the concerns of local black civic leaders by vowing a “tactful” investigation. “That’s the most electrifying and dangerous situation for a law enforcement administrator to handle,” Tony, the county’s first black sheriff, said on Saturday, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Any time a white deputy is involved in contact with using force on a black youth, this thing blows up.”

That such a thing might “blow up” is appropriate. Years of activism and reporting have demonstrated the racism with which law enforcement is applied across the United States. In Broward County, its impact on black youth has been a point of special focus. A 2013 initiative led by Robert Runcie, superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, sought to eliminate disparities in the rates at which black students were suspended and arrested for in-school misconduct compared to their white peers. (During the 2011-2012 school year, black students were roughly two-thirds of those suspended, mostly for minor incidents — like using profanity or disrupting class — despite being 40 percent of the student body, according to the American Prospect.) Runcie partnered with local advocates and law enforcement to implement alternatives to suspension and prohibit arrests — 71 percent of which were for misdemeanors — in some cases where they had been allowed before. (Officers were, however, allowed to override some of these prohibitions: “I wanted to make sure deputies always had discretion,” then-Sheriff Scott Israel told the Prospect.)

The effect was almost immediate. By the end of 2013, suspensions had dropped 40 percent and arrests of students had fallen 66 percent. A more humane tint began to color how local law enforcement treated black children for whom youthful mistakes often meant years of condemnation as criminals. But Thursday’s incident proves that progress on one front does not constitute a sea change any more than it precludes regression. After 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last February, criticism of how Broward County Sheriff’s deputies handled the shooting — including their failure to immediately enter the school when gunshots were reported — prompted an emphasis on meeting perceived threats with swift violence, according to the Washington Post. Deputies have since been re-trained on how to subdue subjects in what one sheriff’s union official described to the Post as a “Fight Club atmosphere.” Some participants have suffered injuries in the process, ranging from fractured bones to a detached retina to brain bleeding.

So when dispatchers on Thursday received calls that a group of teenagers had gathered in a McDonald’s parking lot in Tamarac — a popular hangout for local high schoolers — and that some of them were fighting, they applied the kind of immediate and decisive force that many wished they had wielded against Cruz. Among the differences was that such force is used traditionally against black youth with no such justification — as examples ranging from the 2015 police assault on a black girl in Richland County, South Carolina, to the February police beating of a black girl in Chicago illustrate. For these victims, the misapplication of brutal police training was their lot well before Parkland. That the 15 year old on Thursday committed no clear infraction, let alone a crime, highlights the absurdity of continuing to apply it after. In effect, the training changes in Broward County seek to level against men like Cruz a degree of violence that, for many unarmed black children, was already a danger. Such are the wages of a culture that looks to atrocities like Parkland to shape law enforcement policy, but seems unable or unwilling to ensure that officers do not greet innocent people with the same violence.

Accordingly, Krickovich, who wrote the police report about Thursday’s incident, seemed to inflate Thursday’s threat to justify his response. In his telling, he was arresting another teen for trespassing when Lucca bent down to pick up the boy’s cell phone. “While I was dealing with the male on the ground, I observed his phone slide to the right of me and then behind me,” Krickovich wrote, according to the Sun Sentinel. “I observed a teen [Lucca] wearing a red tank top reach down and attempt to grab the male student’s phone.” In the video, another deputy — identified by the Sun Sentinel as LaCerra — is seen shoving Lucca, after which Lucca appears to object verbally. In the report, Krickovich wrote that Lucca “took an aggressive stance” toward LaCerra, “bladed his body and began clenching his fists.” (The video shows no such clear aggression.) LaCerra then pepper-sprayed Lucca in the face and threw him to the ground. Claiming that he feared for his safety, Krickovich “jumped on [Lucca],” grabbed the prone teen by both sides of his head, slammed his forehead against the concrete, and punched him before another deputy helped him apply handcuffs.

Whether the deputies were actually afraid is less knowable — and arguably less telling — than their confidence that claiming they were would exonerate them of wrongdoing. Racism shapes this expectation. Outlandish scenarios arise from police accounts of the dangers that young black men allegedly pose. Officer Darren Wilson equated Michael Brown to a “demon” during his testimony about the 2014 shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, that sparked protests and riots. “[He] had the most intense, aggressive face,” Wilson told a grand jury. “The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon.” If one accepts that Brown was “like a demon,” claims that he barreled toward a police officer through a hail of bullets become palatable. (No criminal charges were filed against Wilson.) If one concedes that Lucca was similarly endowed, assertions that the unarmed teen posed a threat to gun-toting sheriff’s deputies — despite video evidence to the contrary — is plausible enough for Krickovich to gamble on investigators siding with him.

In a sense, Thursday was a predictable outcome of asking an institution whose job is violence to escalate. Lucca and Cruz — or Lucca and anyone who seeks to harm police officers, really — exist on polar ends of most realistic threat spectra, but separating them is of secondary concern to those convinced that safety means reflexively treating more people like the latter. Krickovich banked on this ambiguity. Racism likely helped rationalize his response, despite it transpiring in a community whose administrators, in the past, sought to reduce disparities. Indeed, it is hard to believe that he and LaCerra would have treated a white child the same way they did Lucca. But when an assault like Thursday’s is permissible as long as officers claim they are afraid — and can convince investigators that their response was consistent with what others would have done in their place — then the bigger issue is more fundamental than whether they were white and the victim black. The problem, one of many, is the public and institutional instinct to let the worst set the standard rather than remain outliers. Humane rules of engagement evaporate where every suspect is a demon. And whatever the outcome of the department’s investigation, it is worth asking if that is a reasonable price to pay for feeling safe.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk...n-t-charge-black-teen-who-was-punched-n997846

Florida prosecutors won't charge black teen who was punched, pepper-sprayed in arrest

Delucca Rolle was pepper-sprayed, slammed to the concrete and punched in the head by Broward County Sheriff deputies last week.


A Florida 15-year-old who was arrested after being pepper-sprayed, slammed to the concrete and punched in the head by deputies last week will not be charged, prosecutors said.

Video footage of Delucca Rolle's arrest drew outrage and accusations of police brutality after Thursday's incident in which Broward County law enforcement responded to a possible fight after school at a Tamarac shopping plaza.

One male student was caught trespassing and arrested after deputies asked a large group of students to leave the area, according to the arrest report.

Cellphone video shows Delucca, also known as Lucca, get up from the ground near the arrested boy and stand in front of one of the deputies.

Lucca is then pepper-sprayed before being pushed to the ground and punched in the head, according to both the footage and the arrest report.

The teen was arrested and accused of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and trespassing, but the state attorney for Broward County said Tuesday that Lucca will not be charged and that an investigation into the deputies will continue.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of the attorneys representing Lucca's family, said in a statement Tuesday that what happened to the boy was "unconscionable."

"Once again, we see that this promise does not extend to people of color — one would hope that an unarmed 15-year-old child would not be treated in this brutal manner, no matter the circumstances," Crump said.

Two men in the footage and in the arrest report, Deputy Christopher Krickovich and Sgt. Gregory Lacerra, were reassigned after video drew criticism from the community.

Krickovich said in his arrest report that he saw Lucca reach for a cellphone near the student who was arrested and then take an "aggressive stance" toward Lacerra.

Krickovich said he was surrounded by students and feared someone might grab one of the weapons off his belt or vest after deputies pushed the boy in the tank top to the ground.

“At this point, his left arm was free and next to him, while he placed his arm under his face," Krickovich's report said. "I struck the male in the right side of his head with a closed fist as a distractionary technique to free his right hand."

The video went viral over the weekend, with celebrities such as basketball legend Lebron James and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr calling out the incident.

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills shared the video on Twitter with the hashtag #JusticeforLucca and called for the deputy to be fired.

"This man couldn’t wait to rough up a black child. Beyond sick of seeing this," Stills said Saturday. "The officers in this video need to be fired and all the chargers against Lucca need to be dropped. Plain and simple."

Broward County Mayor Mark Bogen released a statement Friday suggesting that the deputy in the video be fired and called the incident "outrageous and unacceptable."

"After being sprayed, the teen held his face and walked away," Bogen said. "If the deputy wanted to arrest the student, he could have easily done so without throwing him to the ground."

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony tweeted a video clip from a Saturday meeting with the Broward Black Elected Officials group in which he says that he heard public outcries for the deputy to be fired but that there must be an investigative process first.

"That is the most dangerous and electrifying situation for any law enforcement administrator to handle," Tony said. "Any time a white deputy is involved in contact with using force with a black youth, this thing blows up."

Pig privilege strikes again.. Pigs beat on a black teen for fun.. And the young black man was the one potentially facing charges...
 
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/24/florida-police-broward-county-delucca-rolle

Florida police duo who slammed black teen's head suspended as outrage grows


Two Florida sheriff’s deputies who pepper-sprayed and punched a 15-year-old black student in the head during a violent arrest were beginning a paid suspension on Wednesday, amid growing calls for the officers to be fired.

Cellphone video of the incident, which has been widely shared on social media, also captured the two white officers body slamming the boy, Delucca Rolle, to the ground and smashing his face into the concrete several times.

The episode has reignited tensions in Broward county, where a new sheriff was appointed in January to restore confidence after his predecessor was fired for perceived failures before and during the Parkland high school shooting of February 2018.


Celebrities including the basketball star LeBron James and rapper Jim Joneshave shared their concerns on social media, helping the hashtag #JusticeforLucca go viral.

“It’s child abuse,” said Sue-Ann Robinson, attorney for the teenager’s family. “He’s 15 years old, he’s an eighth-grader. The actions by the officers on the video are unconscionable.”

Rolle was one of a number of youths from a nearby high school who had gathered outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Tamarac, Florida, after lessons last Thursday. Rolle’s family insist he was picking up a cellphone that a classmate had dropped when one officer, who was present because of a fight between students the day before, pepper-sprayed and jumped on him.

The Broward state attorney, Mike Satz, met the boy and his family on Tuesday, and announced he was dropping all charges against the student and continuing to pursue a criminal investigation into the officers’ conduct.

Gregory Tony, the Broward sheriff who has been conducting his own internal inquiry, and suspended the deputies on Tuesday night – five days after the incident – clashed with local politicians in Tamarac on Wednesday morning, calling Satz’s investigation premature and “a mistake”.

“I think it’s because of the level of political impact and the cries that have been occurring not just in our community but across the country,” he said during a testy meeting of the Tamarac city commission, in which he promised transparency and defended his handling of the episode.

In an angry exchange with the Tamarac commissioner Marlon Bolton, who called the video “heartbreaking”, Tony said he would “not stand here and be lectured to about the laws of investigative practices” by those who lacked his experience in law enforcement.

Bolton fired back: “That is the same aggression that your officers used when they pushed one of our young people to the ground.”

Wednesday’s clash mirrored the growing disquiet, both locally and nationally, sparked by the video and images of Rolle’s bloodied face as he sat handcuffed on the ground.

Protesters picketed the Broward sheriff’s office headquarters in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, carrying placards demanding that the two deputies – named as Christopher Krickovich and Gregory LaCerra – be fired. They plan to hold a rally to support Rolle at a park close to JP Taravella high school in Coral Springs on Saturday.


The civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been retained by Rolle’s family, said in a statement: “It is unconscionable what we’ve seen happen to Lucca at the hands of local law enforcement who are sworn to serve and protect. Once again we see that this promise does not extend to people of color.”

Gary Farmer, a Florida state senator, said the deputies’ actions were “an excessive use of force on an African-American child”. He called for their dismissal.

“Incidents like this are a disgrace for the sheriff’s department and undermine the ability of law enforcement to properly carry out their job,” he said. “This is police brutality, plain and simple.”

The union representing the officers insist they felt “surrounded, outnumbered and threatened” by a large group of students and did nothing wrong. Krickovich said Rolle had taken “an aggressive stance” and that he punched the teen in the head as “a distractionary tactic”.


The episode is a setback to Tony’s aim of restoring public confidence in the Broward sheriff’s office in the aftermath of last year’s Parkland shooting, in which police deputies were labelled cowards for waiting outside as a gunman claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, five miles from Taravella.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, fired Sheriff Scott Israel in January and installed Tony as the county’s first black sheriff. Tony said on a Wednesday that a weekend meeting with black community leaders was pre-planned and not a reaction to the video.

“We create these falsehoods in our heads that this was a strategic play to get all the black elected people in one room,” he said. “My focal point was to get the people so we can understand the issues in our community and specifically the minority base here. It’s not some pretend effort, folks.”
 
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