Black News: Teen Violinist Beaten By Cops
PITTSBURGH – The photos taken by Jordan Miles’ mother show his face covered with raw, red bruises, his cheek and lip swollen, his right eye swollen shut. A bald spot mars the long black dreadlocks where the 18-year-old violist says police tore them from his head.
Now, 10 days after plainclothes officers stopped him on a street and arrested him after a struggle that they say revealed a soda bottle under his coat, not the gun they suspected, his right eye is still slightly swollen and bloodshot. His head is shaved. The three white officers who arrested him have been reassigned. And his mother says she is considering a lawsuit.
“I feel that my son was racially profiled,” Terez Miles said. “It’s a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. … They assumed he was up to no good because he’s black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He’s had a very sheltered life, he’s very quiet, he doesn’t know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that.”
A judge continued the case until Feb. 18 after the officers failed to appear at a hearing Thursday, Miles’ attorney, Kerrington Lewis, said. The police department is saying little as it investigates, and isn’t releasing the officers’ names.
We should all read a book by former Police chief, Norm Stamper,”BreakingRank”, in which he describes crimes police, in cluding racism.
I hope he is still alive because he tell it all!!!
This is Pittsburgh and just like the rest of America it still has some growing up to do. I am a native of Clairton and grew during the riots of the early 70′s, and still we as a people must rise. Mr. Jordan Miles, God has got your back even if man does not.