The 16-year-old went to Shingle Creek Crossing store in Brooklyn Center on March 19, 2019 and behaved “like a typical customer,” according to surveillance video described in the report.
A manager — a white woman also not named — called 911 to report that a Black “kid” with dreadlocks was “going through the store, playing with the balls… knocking stuff off shelves,” and that he wouldn’t leave after repeatedly being asked to do so.
Surveillance video shows the teenager did juggle a few items but put them back, while another store employee testified that he was not acting out of the norm and there was no reason to call the police on him.
The teenager did leave when asked by the manager but reentered in protest, believing he was asked to leave because he was Black.
The manager then had another store employee block the teen from reentering and called 911 again to report that the “tyrant customer” had returned and was touching her employees. Surveillance video does not show him touching employees.
Three police arrived shortly after the second 911 call was placed and one of the officers found the teenager shopping in a different store. He approached the teenager and reached to grab his arm, saying “Come here man.”
The teen stepped back, put up his hands and said, “Don’t touch me.”
The officer later testified that raising one’s hands up “is an assaultive posture demonstrating resistance.”
Another officer then entered the store, and together they threw the teenager to the ground, grabbed and pulled him by his dreadlocks, put a knee to his back and handcuffed him, according to the investigative report.
The teenager, while on the ground, cried out “Don’t kill me. I want to grow up.”
One officer replied: “Maybe you should stop fighting the police.”
He was then “jerked (up) by the handcuffs” and taken outside to a brick wall, where officers searched him. They did not give the teenager an opportunity to stand up on his own or provide any verbal instructions.
He was later transported to a hospital and charged with disorderly conduct, trespassing and obstructing the legal process — charges which were later dropped — and banned from entering Michaels for a year.