By Dan Whitcomb and Brendan O’Brien
-The family of a Black teenager who was pinned to the ground and arrested by New Jersey police following a fight with a white teenager at a local mall has retained the attorney in the George Floyd wrongful death case, Benjamin Crump, to represent them.
“This is another example of the kind of racial bias that we need to root out of our system of policing,” Crump said in a written statement on Thursday.
A video that went viral on social media showed the two teens fighting in a sitting area at the Bridgewater Commons Mall at the weekend when two officers arrived. One officer sat the white teen on a couch while the other threw the Black teen to the ground.
Crump said the officer pinned down his client, eighth grader Z’Kye Husain, and handcuffed him because officers believed his skin color made him more of a threat than the white teen involved in the scuffle.
“We have requested that the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office assist us in this matter and are requesting patience as we strictly adhere to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Internal Affairs Directive (regarding such cases),” the Bridgewater Township Police Department said.
The white teenager who fought with Husain was apparently not taken into custody at the scene. Police have not identified him.
“I’m deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment in this video,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said on Twitter on Wednesday.
The use of force by police against young Black men has prompted calls for reforms nationwide.
Floyd, 46, died in May 2020 under the knee of then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin as he was being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit bill, a case that touched off a summer of street protests in major U.S. cities.
Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2021 and sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Howard Goller)