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Family of Teenage Boy Sue Over Police Beating
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Donovan
Jackson and his father Coby Chavis filed a civil rights suit
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LOS
ANGELES, July 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A black teenager
who was handcuffed and beaten by a white policeman in Los Angeles sued
the officer and local authorities Wednesday, July 10, as the U.S.
government launched a civil rights probe into the incident.
The
boy, Donovan Jackson, and his father Coby Chavis filed a civil rights
suit against four policemen and their employers, the Los Angeles area
city of Inglewood and Los Angeles County, following Saturday’s
videotaped beating, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“We
want to send the city of Inglewood a message that we are going to
prosecute this case as vigorously and as roughly as they beat our
clients,” lawyer John Sweeney said adding that the suit would claim
at least a million dollars.
“The
local rules of the federal court prohibit you from asking for a dollar
figure but we believe this is a seven figure case,” he said, adding
that the damages allegedly sustained by the pair had not yet been
ascertained.
The
police officer accused of beating 16-year-old Jackson, whose family
says he suffers from a speech and learning disability, has been
suspended from duty pending the outcome of an internal inquiry while
three other officers are also under investigation, AFP reported.
The
beating, which was videotaped by an amateur cameraman from a nearby
hotel, has been repeatedly played on television, further stirring
anger and racial tensions in one of the world’s most multi-ethnic
cities.
Furious
local civic leaders, who marched to Inglewood city hall Tuesday, July
9, and stormed into the mayor’s office to protest the beating, have
demanded that the officer be sacked and face criminal charges.
The
U.S. Justice Department has also opened a civil-rights investigation
into the alleged beating of the teenager, to be conducted by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
announced Wednesday.
The
department has sent specialists led by Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights Ralph Boyd to aid in calming racial tension in the city
following Saturday’s incident, he said.
One
officer, Jeremy Morse, was seen slamming the shackled boy down on the
trunk of a police car before repeatedly punching him in the face as
other officers surrounded the boy with some apparently helping hold
him down.
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| Activists
protest in front of the Inglewood, Calif., police station
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The
beating revived memories of the violent 1992 Los Angeles riots sparked
by the acquittal by a jury of a group of white policemen accused of
savagely beating black motorist Rodney King.
Police
said the latest scuffle took place after officers approached
Jackson’s father on suspicion of driving without a license and
became embroiled in an altercation with the boy.
A police report seen by the
Los Angeles Times said the boy failed to
respond to the officers’ orders to turn around and put his hands on
the roof of the car.
Officers
claim that the boy injured Morse before the videotape began rolling
and a bleeding cut could be seen on his face in the film. The boy was
booked for assaulting a police officer and was later released, AFP
said.
His
supporters, who are planning a rally in Los Angeles Saturday, July 13,
are demanding that the charges against Jackson be dropped, that an
independent probe into the incident be launched and that criminal
charges be filed against all the officers allegedly involved in the
beating.
But
the boy’s lawyers said the boy was returning to his father’s car
after paying for a tank of petrol when he was accosted by the officers
who allegedly quickly turned violent.
Sweeney
said the boy was suffering “tremendous pain” in his jaw as a
result of being slammed down on the police car.
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