NBA player Sterling Brown and his team, the Milwaukee Bucks, admonished the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) and racist police violence after the department released video of officers violently arresting Brown in January.
The body camera footage, which the MPD released yesterday (May 23), shows several unidentified officers questioning Brown for allegedly parking in a handicapped spot outside a Walgreens on January 26. At the eight-minute mark, an officer demands Brown show his hands, and others try to force him to the ground when he says, "I got stuff in my hands." One policeman yells, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" before Brown audibly groans. The video also shows an officer saying that Brown, who is Black, "was being an ass."
"I am sorry this incident escalated to this level," MPD chief Alfonso Morales said in a statement accompanying the video. He added that the officers received unspecified discipline after the arrest, and that the department did not charge pursue criminal charges against Brown.
Brown released his own statement on Twitter yesterday. He called the officers’ treatment "police intimidation" and pledged to "take legal action against the Milwaukee Police Department to continue forcing change in the community."
"Situations like mine and worse happen every day in the Black community," Brown wrote. Read the full statement:
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rnt— SB (@thatnegus_sb) May 23, 2018
rntIn a separate statement, the Bucks organization referred to the arrest as "abuse and intimidation," critiqued "racial biases" in policing and offered "full support" to Brown.
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