Video footage shows two New Jersey police officers only arresting a Black male teen after a fight between him and a white male teen breaks out inside Bridgwater Commons Mall.
Activist Shaun King posted a video to his Instagram page of a fight between two male teens, one Black, and one white. In the video, the white teen walks up on the Black teen and starts pointing his finger at the Black teen while the two appear to have a verbal altercation. The Black teen then shoves the white teen’s hand out of his face, and then the white teen pushes him, and they both start fighting.
During the fight, people in the background can be heard cursing and using the N-word. The teens surrounding the two teens appear to all be white. Those behind the camera aren’t in the frame and can’t be seen.
Eventually, two white police officers intervene. The video footage shows the two cops working together to pin down and arrest the Black teen, who appears smaller than the white teen. The cops kneeled on the Black teen’s back One of the teens in the background suggests that the police are arresting the Black teen because he’s Black. “It’s because he’s Black, racially motivated,” a teen is heard saying in the video.
“His name is Z’kye and he’s just 14 years old and was standing up to a (white) bully at Bridgewater Mall in New Jersey,” wrote King in his Instagram post, mentioning that he’s spoken to Z’kye’s family. “And we will make sure they get the support they need. Watch how the police see this situation then handcuff and arrest Z’kye and leave the white boy alone. Z’kye’s family told me they kept him in cuffs for nearly 30 minutes after this. It’s why my wife and I don’t really even feel comfortable letting our teens roam the mall. Those places were clearly meant for some people and not others. But they want our money. And they want our swag.”
From the video footage, the white teen is left free. One of the two cops, a female officer, is only seen going up to the teen afterward, holding her hand up to him, seemingly telling him to stand back.
During an investigation into the incident, the Black teen was identified as Z’kye. His last name has not been publicized.
“I was confused, like, why they saw me as a bad person, like, me as an aggressor,” Z’kye says, CBS 2 New York reports. Z’kye says the fight broke out because he was standing up for his friend who was being picked on by the white teen. He says the cops were on top of him for 30 seconds, igniting fear within him
Z’kye’s mother shares the same feelings. “If they don’t know how to treat the situation and deal with the situation equally and fairly, then they shouldn’t be able to deal with the situation at all,” she said.
In a statement, the Bridgewater Police Department said: “We recognize that this video has made members of our community upset and are calling for an internal affairs investigation. The officers were able to respond quickly to this incident and stop it from escalating because of a tip we received from the community.” Z’kye has reportedly been banned from the mall for three years.
On Tuesday night, Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted that he is “deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment in this video.”
Z’kye, his mother and New Jersey’s chapter of the NAACP is calling for the two officers to be removed. The NAACP wrote that it is “disappointed to see still another police action irrefutably showing the disparate treatment of African Americans in our police institutions.” An investigation is still underway.
Discover more from Baller Alert
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
