WATCH: Viral Video Shows DC Police Violently Handcuffing Teenage Student

By Kenrya Rankin Oct 14, 2015

Twitter is buzzing with a video of 18-year-old Jason Goolsby, a University of DC student, being roughly arrested by two Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers on Monday. The assault was captured by a friend of Goolsby’s—he calls him “Mike” in the video—who was also taken down to the ground and handcuffed after the officers decided he didn’t back up quickly enough.

 

 

In the video, the officers are telling Goolsby, who is black, to stop resisting as they twist his arms behind his back, all while he yells in pain and continually repeats, “I’m not resisting.”

The Washington Post reports that the police received a 911 call saying that there were men possibly looking to rob ATM users and that they were wearing backpacks and “flat-top bush hairstyles.” MPD spokesperson Officer Sean Hickman provided the following statement to The Huffington Post:

The initial call was for a suspicious person, three subjects may be trying to rob people at the ATM. The location for the call was 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave, SE. Officers in the area responded to the assignment. One individual fled on foot from the police, was chased, and then taken down. The individual resisted, and was handcuffed while resisting after he refused to stop. The person making the video was interfering with police, and was also detained while the incident was investigated. Neither individual was arrested.

Another spokesperson told The Guardian that, “No criminal act was found to have taken place after the individuals were stopped and interviewed” and that the MPD was “reviewing the circumstances surrounding the stop to ensure that policies and procedures were followed.”

The hashtag #JusticeForJason erupted online as the video went viral, and students took to DC streets to protest the MPD’s actions:

 

 

 

 

 

One of Goolsby’s former teachers—and a Black Lives Matter activist—Erika Totten called him “one of the sweetest kids I’ve had the honor of teaching,” and told The Washington Post: “If you’re black, you’re an automatic threat. That’s the reality of the world we live in, and it’s supported by the justice system. White fear of a black boy caused that.”