The family of one of the teenagers who had a gun pulled on them by a New Rochelle, N.Y. police officer while they were having a snowball fight has reportedly hired a lawyer.
According to the New York Daily News, the mother of one of the teens works for the Department of Corrections:
Right now, [the family is] talking to a lawyer, Damon Jones of advocacy group Black Law Enforcement in America said during his weekly show.
One of the kids in the video's mother is a sergeant in the Department of Corrections, Jones said.
A lawyer for the family refused to identify the mother or the New Rochelle high schooler who was part of a group whose aggressive detainment was caught on tape and sparked social-media ire, intensifying debates on the relationship between police and the black community.
However, the Daily News notes that New Rochelle Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Murphy dismissed the video as "clever mischief, " insisting that it was edited:
Murphy suggested commentary was edited into the video in a deliberate attempt to mislead viewers.
They were having a snowball fight, an onlooker notes.
Murphy also said a suspect who fled the scene adjusted something in his waistband before running. Officers were responding to a report of a teen brandishing a handgun in the area, and that the suspect’s reach toward his waistband could have suggested to police that he was armed.
Alexa Watts, who recorded the encounter, maintains that she did not doctor the video:
I didn’t see any adjustment of the waistband, she said. I saw the cop with his gun out, and the kid ran.
When he pulls up, he pulls up aggressively, like he’s going to try to run one of them over the way he goes in their direction, Watts said. There was no, like, him driving up slowly and trying to assess the situation.
The cop had the gun right at the other kid’s head, she said. And I decided, let me pull my phone out, because what if this cop shoots?
The New Rochelle Police Department plans to look into the language used by Sgt. Joseph Salerno in the clip. Aside from that, they're giving him their full support.
[via New York Daily News]
