By Fredrick Kunkle, The Washington Post
Imagine being run over by a car and then being charged with a crime for being the victim.
Earlier this month, three African-American young men were walking along a street at night in the small Louisiana town of La Ville Platte (pop. 7,270) when a Chevrolet pickup truck hit them, inflicting minor injuries. The driver of the truck — who said he was blinded by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle — wasn’t charged, police said. But the three pedestrians were.
Police charged them with unlawfully obstructing traffic and failure to have reflective gear. That’s a misdemeanor that could put a person in a highly visible orange jumpsuit for up to a year.
“I”m upset about the situation,” Deonte Williams, 21, told local TV news station KATC-3 TV. Williams said if anything, the driver should have been cited. He told the station the trio was walking on the grass beside the roadway when the pickup hit them.
