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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy spoke out Tuesday about a video being shared on social media of police breaking up a fight between two teenagers in the township of Bridgewater.
The video shows the officers handcuffing and pinning a Black teen to the ground while a white teen involved in the fight sits on a couch.
The fight took place at the Bridgewater Commons mall on Saturday. A witness filmed the events and shared a video online, prompting calls of racism directed at the police officers.
Murphy noted that police are investigating the incident in a Twitter post that linked to a story by MyCentralJersey.com that contains the video. He also described what he saw as a problematic reaction by the officers.
"Although an investigation is still gathering the facts about this incident, I'm deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment in this video," Murphy wrote. "We're committed to increasing trust between law enforcement and the people they serve."
The video of the fight and police intervention has been shared on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. In the footage, a group of young people is seen seated in the mall when an argument breaks out between two young males. Soon, the two boys—one white and one Black—begin throwing punches.
Moments later, two uniformed officers from the Bridgewater Police Department arrive and pull the two boys apart. The white teen is pushed into a seated position on a nearby couch by one officer while the Black teen is forced onto his stomach with an officer's knee on his back. A second officer then comes over and puts her knee near the prone teen's neck while he is handcuffed.
The Bridgewater Police Department addressed the incident on Monday in a statement on its Facebook page: "We recognize that this video has made members of our community upset and are calling for an internal affairs investigation."
On Wednesday, the NAACP-NJ State Conference also released a statement.
"When Bridgewater police found two youths fighting, the immediate reaction was to aggressively throw the black child to the ground, knee placed around the neck area and cuffed behind the back," the NAACP wrote. "At the same time, the white youth, at least equally at fault for the fight as his black counterpart, was carefully eased onto a couch and treated like a victim.
"The time for the Governor and Attorney General to put a stop to this type of behavior by the police is NOW."
Meanwhile, neither teenager will be welcomed back to Bridgewater Commons soon. The senior general manager of the mall told NJ Advance Media that both boys are banned from the facility for three years because of the fight.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more