darrin manning, a 16 year-old black male in philadelphia, was stopped by police while going to a high school basketball game with his friends. he claims a female officer handled him aggressively and his genitals were injured. manning was forced to have emergency surgery - and faces the prospect of being infertile.
manning's brutal assault, mistreatment and trauma on January 7 is shameful. yet the philadelphia district attorney r. seth williams intends to press charges against him. the group of friends started running away, but manning said he stopped running and tried to comply with police orders because he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
after he was arrested, manning said an officer violently patted him down and "grabbed and squeezed and pulled my private parts and i felt something pop." despite a court order to reduce it, philadelphia continues to utilize the polarizing stop and frisk policy at a very high rate. black and brown youth are disproportionately targeted by a department with a history of racial oppression.
manning is a straight a student and star athlete with no criminal history. like trayvon martin, he was unarmed, posing no thereat to society. despite being victimized, he faces three misdemeanor charges: reckless endangerment to of another person, resisting arrest, and simple assault. his attorney called the charges outrageous.
lewis small, manning's attorney, said, "it's horrible. it's sexual assault, as far as i'm concerned. national outrage has unified efforts to demand the charges are dropped immediately, and the officers involved held accountable by law. one of the officers visible in the security footage has been placed on desk duty. it's unclear if that officer searched manning.
police commissioner charles h. ramsey said internal affairs investigators would like to speak with manning. but his attorney will not let manning speak with police until his charges are dropped. small said, "i'm not going to allow my client to sit down and give a written statement. that's in effect malpractice by any attorney while criminal charges are outstanding."
i am
- mark j. tuggle
- harlem, usa
- same-gender-loving contemporary descendant of enslaved africans. community activist, feminist, health educator, independent filmmaker, mentor, playwright, poet & spiritual being. featured at, in & on africana.com, afrikan poetry theatre, angel herald, bejata dot com, bet tonight with tavis smiley, blacklight online, black noir, brooklyn moon cafe, gmhc's barbershop, klmo-fm, lgbt community services center, longmoor productions, nuyorican poets cafe, our corner, poz, pulse, rolling out new york, rush arts gallery, saint veronica's church, schomburg center for research in black culture, sexplorations, the citizen, the new york times, the soundz bar, the trenton times, the village voice, upn news, uzuri, venus, vibe, wbai-fm, wnyc-fm & wqht-fm. volunteered with adodi, bailey house, inc., black men's xchange-new york, colorofchange.org, drug policy alliance, east harlem tutorial program, imagenation film & music festival, presente.org, save darfur coalition, the enough project, the osborne association, the sledge group & your black world. worked on films with maurice jamal & heather murphy. writing student of phil bertelsen & ed bullins. mjt975@msn.com.
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