(MintPress) – The recent killing of an unarmed Maryland teen follows an unfortunate trend of police violence against young Americans of color. Seventeen-year-old Christopher Brown, was killed after an altercation with an off-duty police officer this week. The family of the victim announced Thursday that they are seeking answers from the ongoing investigation into the teen’s passing. A coroner’s report indicated the cause of death was “asphyxiation.” While the off-duty officer has yet to be arraigned, the death has been classified as a homicide.
The investigation
Brown was, by his Aunt’s account, an upstanding citizen and a star athlete in lacrosse, football and wrestling. Additionally he served as a mentor and usher at his local church. As the investigation continues, details of the case continue to surface.
Baltimore Police say that the off-duty officer, who has yet to be named publicly in the case, heard a loud noise while at his home on Wednesday night. After inspecting his front door, the officer noticed damage to his home and spotted three or four individuals running away from the scene.
The officer chased Christopher Brown for several blocks, through the Baltimore suburb of Woodlawn before finally engaging him in a physical attack. After Brown lost consciousness, the officer called paramedics who tried unsuccessfully to revive the incapacitated Brown. He was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
While it is unclear whether Brown was part of the group suspected of damaging the officer’s house, his Aunt, Charlene Harven, says that Brown was walking home from a friend’s house at the time of the incident. She continues, noting that Brown was recovering a knee surgery and would not have been able to run quickly from the scene. Family point to his exceptional record as an athlete and upstanding community member as reason to believe that Christopher was not involved in any criminal activity.
Although the investigation has yet to yield an arrest, the details of Brown’s homicide are reminiscent of a number of other cases in which police have used force unnecessarily and unjustly, against unarmed citizens of color.
Another Oscar Grant
In 2009, for example, Oakland Police killed Oscar Grant, an unarmed African-American man on a train platform. After responding to a call of a disturbance at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station, officers attempted to arrest Grant.
One officers announced that he was going to use a taser gun to subdue an uncooperative Grant, shortly thereafter one of his fellow officers shot Grant in the back. Grant was found to be unarmed, and the incident was captured on cell phone cameras by four eyewitnesses, as well as BART surveillance cameras.
The case led to an involuntary manslaughter charge against Johannes Mehserle, the officer charged in the killing.
Grant’s case drew national attention to racial profiling and police brutality, a problem that activists and community leaders have long decried. Allegations of heavy-handed police tactics leading to assaults and murders are typically investigated internally by the police department in question, a problematic aspect that Human Rights Watch, among other groups, has said leads to lackadaisical investigations and few convictions.
In 2010, a report issued by the Cato Institute titled National Police Misconduct Reporting Project (NPMRP) found 4,861 unique cases of police misconduct nationally between January-December 2010. The statistics recorded were all encompassing, covering all categories of misconduct, including false arrest, excessive force, sexual abuse, fraud and theft. Of the data collected in the project, 247 fatalities were linked directly to police misconduct.