A fight between two teenagers at a New Jersey mall is being investigated.
Footage of the incident appears to show that the police who handled the situation treated the teens differently based on their race. CBS New York reports the children got into a scuffle at the Bridgewater Commons Mall. When officers arrived, the Black teen was aggressively handcuffed on the ground while the other teen—who by different reputable outlets has been called white, Latino, and “white-passing Latino”—remained untouched and was seen sitting on a couch.
The clip shows officers kneeling on the back of 14-year-old Kye for almost 30 seconds as they cuff him. “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,” Kye told the news outlet.
He added, “I was confused, like, why they saw me as a bad person, like, me as an aggressor,” explaining he got into a fight because the other boy was tormenting Kye’s friend.
The Bridgewater Police Department issued a statement following the incident reading, “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.”
Kye’s mother Ebone thinks the police could have instead “dealt with them like they were teenagers” and called their parents rather than handcuff Kye. The eighth grader told CBS he wants the officers “to be fired.”
His mom agreed, saying, “I’m not happy about it, and I do want those two cops to become unemployable. That’s what I would like.”
CBS says the family is “choosing not to say whether they feel the incident was racially motivated.” Kye has been told he’s not allowed to return to the mall for three years.
Gov. Phil Murphy also issued a statement on Tuesday night, saying in part, “I’m deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment in this video.”
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