What happened next that evening in May 2021 is the basis for a lawsuit by the mother alleging that Burlington police used excessive force and discriminated against her unarmed son, who is Black and has behavioral and intellectual disabilities.
After he failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes, two officers physically forced him to do so, then Cathy Austrian’s son was handcuffed and pinned to the ground as he screamed and struggled, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday and police body-camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
The teen eventually was injected with a ketamine, a sedative, then taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.
I’m not sure what you expected. You told the police about a crime, do you not expect them to arrest the criminal?
Do they not treat children and adults differently in the legal system where you come from?
This wasn’t a murder or any other violent crime. It was petty theft from a business committed by a minor.
Yeah, if he was an adult they might have killed him instead.
It takes a special mix of thin blue line bootlicking and thinking the world revolves around you to think this was a good idea.
deleted by creator
Kinda hard to deepthroat tiny dicks,
I didn’t expect them to inject ketamine into a child
If a cop in my country injected ketamine into a minor during an arrest it would be in the national news for weeks. Totally unacceptable.
For a petty theft committed by a mentally disabled minor?
The situation was non-violent and under control - the cops escalated far beyond what was needed because they got bored waiting for the kid to fork over the last couple of e-cigarettes. There was no need to pin the kid to the ground, and definitely no need to inject them with ketamine.
In a world where all cops weren’t bastards, they would have continued to build a rapport until they could convince the kid to give them back, give the kid a lecture about stealing, then let everyone be on their way.
It’s like some people don’t understand what community policing or policing by consent is. Cops shouldn’t be resorting to force unless they really have to and someone not handing over an e cig in no way warrants being tackled or restrained plus with neurodivergent people that only makes them more agitated which then obviously makes the situation worse.
It’s not fucking rocket science that different situations call for different responses and some situations only really need a fucking talking or conversation.
Exactly. In a sane world, cops shouldn’t ever be the ones escalating any situation, especially one where there is no on-going threat