By Shaun King, nydailynews.com
Last month, as five young black boys in Grand Rapids, Mich., were walking home from a local rec center, where they had been playing basketball, they were swarmed by local police, who drew their guns, and held them at gunpoint for over 10 minutes, as the boys wailed in fear and confusion. The incident happened nearly a month ago, but the body camera footage was just released.
The situation is awful.
The boys are 12 to 14 years old, and had absolutely no idea what was going on.
“I don’t want to die,” one boy cried out to the officers.
“Can you please put your guns down?” pleaded another boy.
Through it all you can hear the gut-wrenching sobs of one of the boys as he is gripped with fear.
A fight had broken out in the city earlier that day, March 24. One of the witnesses claimed he saw a young man in that fight drop a gun. When police later saw these young boys walking home, the cops claimed the boys matched the earlier descriptions.
That was, it appears, all police needed to scare these kids for the rest of their lives. After swarming and surrounding the boys with guns drawn, the police then handcuffed each of the boys and put them in the backs of their police cars.
Read more at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/king-cops-held-5-innocent-black-boys-gunpoint-caused-harm-article-1.3094683
