I am so angry and sad right now, I figure before I do something irl I approach I know online.
I work in one of the high-rises in Center City (downtown) Philly. This afternoon, near the end of my day I was sitting out front with a friend who was on her lunch when we saw a young black boy on his bike roll up, casually leave his bike outside, and walk into the lobby. This isn't really unusual because there are retail shops on the ground level of this building. I also saw two officers go inside after the boy, but I didn't think anything of it at that moment.
My friend finished her break a few minutes later, and we went inside just in time to see the two officers grappling with the kid near the elevators. One officer slammed him to the ground, and they both jumped on his back and cuffed him. The boy then started shouting something I couldn't make out, when one of the cops then pulled the bottom of his sweater up and over his head, leaving his entire upper body exposed. At this point, it was me, my friend, and a group of people gathered around watching this. Some people telling the boy not to resist, some of us were yelling at the cops to stop manhandling him. The boy was clearly a kid, and BOTH cops substantially bigger than him. After a few moments, four more cops show up. One cop grabs the boy by each arm, two more by each leg, and they lift him and began carrying him out of the building, with the other cops following behind. The group of us followed them, my friend and I asked if anybody saw what the boy did. The people who had been inside when this happened said they didn't see anything but two cops run up on the boy and then a tussle started. They figured he must have done something outside. We told them they boy really just rolled up on his bike and walked in.
There was a police van waiting out in front of the building, the cops literally throw the boy into it. At this point several of the older women (all black) are freaking out, because they're not even trying to be gentle at this point. One of the cops eventually came over and told us to step away from the van, and then explains that they approached the boy because he was suspicious and there had been several thefts at the stores in the building recently yadda yadda yadda. This didn't make sense to me, because the cops had tackled the boy by the elevators to the upper floors of the building, which are nowhere near where the shops are.
We're still standing around watching, the police were filling out a report, when eventually an older woman comes running out of the building.
It's the boy's mother.
The boy's mother works in the building, and she had his phone. He came to her job to get his phone. This boy was approached by police, forced to the ground, humiliated and carried out of the building like fucking swine for coming to his mom's job after school to get his phone. To make it worse even after the mom approached the police and told them why he was there, they still refused to let him go. They took him away. He's probably still there now.
To say that the crowd outside went nuts after this would be an understatement.