I am afraid of
the police. I have never enjoyed them, but they have helped me from time to
time, and they do protect and serve the community from time to time. But after
what I saw last night, I am only afraid of them and I am terrified of the
retaliation I will face for speaking out about what I saw.

 

On Thursday evening I witnessed one of the most brutal and
heinous crimes I have ever seen committed against a human. I had to watch a man
who had done nothing wrong other than be the only African-American man on the
train car, be senselessly beaten. He preformed no ill towards another, and had
bothered no one, and was doing nothing but sitting there alone minding his own
business. It was a non-African-American BART police officer who preformed these
crimes against him.

 

I watched and recorded the first part of their interaction
because it was so suspicious. Why was the one African-American man on the train
car spoke to by the officer and not myself or anyone else on that car? Why did
the officer come from behind us and immediately engage that man and not myself?
He was not bothering anyone, nor was he acting strange in anyway. Frankly, I
don’t believe it was anything other than having skin darker than my own that
attracted the unwarranted attention of the officer.

 

They spoke for a bit and it turns out that the man had
Viocdin in a sandwich bag on him (which the officer extracted from the man
without permission), so the officer asked him to step off the train and on to
the platform. I see the men talk for a good thirty seconds before the African-American
man tries to walk away. Without saying anything, the officer grabs the man from
behind around the neck and violently throws him to the ground.

 

I looked on in horror as the scuffle continues with the
officer beating this man. He fists just kept raining down. I begged and pleaded
for him to stop. He kept hitting him in the back of the head. I scream for him
to stop and he refused to.

 

“Stop resisting!” The officer yelled.

“He’s not! He just lying there!” A brave woman yelled out
from behind me, “Stop it! Stop!”

 

I am on my knees in front of the two of them. The African-American
man in bunched up on his stomach, arms sucked in protecting the side of his
head trying to protect himself from the officer punching. The officer stops at
this point.

 

Thank god.

 

It is only to pull out his pepper spray.

 

Oh god no…

 

“Please don’t do this! For the love of god he is doing
nothing. Officer, look at me! Look at me! Make eye contact with me! For the
love of God be human for a fucking second! Don’t do this.”  I am starring at the officer hoping he will
look at me, he won’t, he can’t even bring himself to look at me.

 

He pulls the trigger on the pepper spray and the poor man
starts to scream. Speckles of the spray dot my own face—it burns with the fury
of Hell, I can only imagine how the eyes of this poor man must feel. He is
writhing on the ground screaming when two other officers show up and help
‘restrain’ the man.

 

The lieutenant wanted a statement from me. I refuse. I don’t
trust him for he works with the man that I just saw brutalize and dehumanize
another man. I don’t trust him and I am afraid of him. They have protected no
one here. They have served nothing in this situation. I only saw horrible
violence and brutality. Excessive force and torture. There was no reason to
attack that man, there was no reason to pepper spray him.

 

I saw what they did to him, and I am afraid. I am afraid of
the police.

I have followed up with the lead officer and heard nothing. I have contacted a lawyer as well and we are trying to move forward with getting some sort of charges against the officer who committed these acts of violence, I am not sure if we will get anywhere, but I must do something…