A New Jersey mom is thankful today after a neighborhood potentially saved her son’s life after he was chased by New Jersey police on the hunt for an armed robbery suspect.
Patisha Solomon says it’s likely her son, 10-year-old Legend Preston, would’ve ended up in a body bag if hadn’t been for Newark residents shielding him from police who thought he was the 20-year-old suspect they were looking for. “One wrong move, and my child wouldn’t be here right now. My son could have tripped. He could have reached for a toy. They could have done anything to my son and it could have been his fault,” Solomon said in an interview with the New York Daily News.
The traumatic incident occurred earlier this month when, according to his mom, Preston was retrieving a basketball and saw cops “bearing down on him like his face was on a wanted person.” The boy took off running, admitting that he ran in fear of being shot and killed. “I was scared for my life,” Preston told the paper. “I was thinking that they were going to shoot me.”
Preston bolted to neighbors and friends who screamed, “This is a child!,” while forming a protective shield around him, stopping the armed cops who reportedly had their guns drawn out. Cops said Preston ‘matched the description’ before eventually finding the real culprit, Casey Joseph Robinson, a 20-year-old black man with dreadlocks and facial hair.
A 2014 study published by American Psychological Association found that black boys as young as 10 are viewed older than their white peers.
Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
Tamir Rice, 12, was shot and killed by Cleveland police who mistook him for an adult carrying a real gun.
(via NYDN)
