This testimony is provided by a current inmate within the juvenile justice system.
I have had multiple experiences with the police, some led to an arrest and some didn’t. I can be just lounging around in my neighborhood, playground or walking into the store and police will assume I have a gun or I am doing some type of criminal activity. I have gotten harassed by the police multiple times. The police thought I had a gun one time and they asked me “where’s the gun, where’s the gun?” I didn’t have on a shirt so it was obvious that I didn’t have a gun in my waistband and they checked my pockets and they thought I had a gun but I didn’t.

The first time it happened and when I caught my first case, I was 14 and they beat me up and roughed me up or whatever and they did something that wasn’t part of the procedure. This has happened more than once and I’ve watched this happen to other people that I surround myself with. [Its happening] because people are not paying attention, like people in higher authority are not putting that much thought into it and research and investigation into it or whatever and its happening and that’s why a lot of young black people look at the police how we do.

We think they are all out to get us. Even they though are all not because I have family members who are police officers and I am not saying I am perfect because my family is police or that they are perfect but it changed the way I look at police because if you have an officer that is doing right and a partner who is doing wrong, he is going to try and influence him to do the wrong because he has been getting away with it and he’s going to try and show him how to do it. I don’t know if they get a thrill out of it but it’s not cool at all, for sure.  

Not all police are bad but it’s like, I don’t know….