A Black Philadelphia student is calling out four police officers after she took video of them detaining a shirtless black teen waiting at a bus stop.
The girl, identified as 16-year-old Asia on social media, said the incident happened Sept. 12 and some of the officer’s words to the detained teen were:
“Don’t forget to tell your friends you were shaking in a cop’s car.”
Asia described how the incident started in the caption of a video she posted on Instagram Sept. 13
“Now Philly this was exactly after school at the bus stop [there was a group of us],” she said in the caption. “One cop car passed us and stared, 3 minutes later 2 cars came in front of us and 4 officers jumped out.”
In the video, a white police officer can be seen escorting the shirtless teen into the back of a police SUV.
“Have a seat, all the way in,” the cop said.
At that point, another Black boy walked up and said “excuse me,” and a female officer on the scene told the boy to “back up.”
Meanwhile, the other officer can be heard asking the boy in the police SUV if he had identification.
“You’re in the back of my car. Are you shaking?” the cop asked.
Moments later, the teen can be heard saying, “I didn’t ask nothing. I’m just sitting right here.”
“Sit in my car,” the officer responded.
The video showed the child was already sitting in the SUV, but his feet were hanging just outside the vehicle, facing the officer who held the nearest door open.
At the officer’s request, the child had started to move one of his legs farther inside the car when the officer can be seen grabbing the other, throwing it inside the car and shutting the door before turning his attention to other children waiting at the bus stop, the video showed.
“Where are you guys going?” the officer asked.
“Home,” someone off-camera can be heard saying.
“Oh, you’re going home,” the officer said. “Start walking.”
At least two people can be heard explaining that they were waiting for the bus.
“Well, something’s obviously going on out here, all right,” the officer said.
At that point, the student recording pointed out the officer’s badge number.
“Didn’t do anything wrong right?” the officer asked rhetorically.
He paced as three other officers on the scene were shown watching.
“Look at her badge number too,” the student recording said. “Aw, y’all so cute.”
She later said in the caption of her Instagram post that of the four officers on the scene, “none could tell us what the boy did besides the fact of wait for the bus along with the rest of the group.”
Asia said the officer eventually released the teen without explaining why he had been detained, and she added that the cop circled back after the boy was released and asked him, “Are you good? You’re still shaking.”
The Philadelphia Police Department responded to Asia’s tweets by asking her to open a formal complaint.
“Please visit this link to file an Official Complaint Against Police,” a police official said in the tweet. “Please provide as much detail as possible on the form.”
Philadelphia police have not yet responded to an Atlanta Black Star request for comment.
Video of the incident had been viewed more than 270,000 times on Twitter by Monday morning.
“@PhillyPolice I honestly want to (hear) the body camera’s audio for this day AND you owe the young gentlemen an apology for harassment,” Asia said in another Twitter post.
“@PhillyPolice this is an abuse of power. The egotistical officer is deliberately intimidating this young boy. Why is this allowed,” one Twitter user asked.
“‘Remember you were shaking in the police car,'” another Twitter user said. “My god. These are children.”
