Did police officers tell a group of black teens to get out of the mostly white Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Park Slope? One witness says yes.
According to the New York Daily News, Sara Bennett said that on Sept. 22 she saw a group of five teens walking in the neighborhood when police pulled up beside them. With his lights and sirens on, one police officer told the kids over a loudspeaker to leave the area.
“I was upset by [the] police behavior. I notified my city councilperson about what I had witnessed. His office told me I should voice my concern at a precinct council meeting, so I did,” Bennett wrote on her Facebook page.
During the meeting, Bennett said that she was upset and disturbed, “not by the kids, but by the way the police were yelling at them to get out of the neighborhood. They were just walking down the street.”
Commanding Officer Capt. Frank DiGiacomo said that his officers had been looking for groups of youths loitering near the Atlantic Center Mall, but the mall is about a mile and a half away from the location of the incident, according to the Daily News.
Bennett wrote on Facebook, “I hope this little bit of press attention makes the police change their practice.”
Read more at the New York Daily News.