More than 100 demonstrators gathered in front of the Bridgewater Police Department’s headquarters on Saturday to protest the apparently disparate way officers treated two teens, one Black and one with lighter skin, who fought last week at the nearby mall.
The fight, which happened Feb. 12 at Bridgewater Commons Mall, was broken up when officers took the Black boy to the ground and handcuffed him, while the lighter skinned boy was apparently never cuffed. Video of the incident went viral.
While officers gazed on from inside the municipal building, those in attendance at the rally stood in solidarity with the Black teen, Kye, and demanded more — from the Bridgewater Police Department, from the criminal justice system, from state government, and from society.
Protestors attend a press conference at the Bridgewater Police Department on Saturday.Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media
“Now you know what systemic racism looks like,” said Steve Young, president of the South Jersey chapter of the National Action Network, the organization led by Rev. Al Sharpton.
The rally, organized by the Newark-based activist group People’s Organization for Progress, included comments by Kye’s aunt, Enrie Simms. She described her nephew as too shy to order for himself at Chipotle, and said she refers to him as “my little twin, because he’s just like me.”
She said Kye, an eighth grader, “stood up to a bully” at the mall to defend a seventh grader from high school students.
“He did exactly what we all taught him to do, and he was met with not one, but two knees in his back,” Simms said. “Isn’t he an example of how we teach our children to act? We’ve all gone through programs for anti-bullying, to stand up no matter what.”
Enrie Simms, the aunt of the Black teenager who handcuffed by police at the nearby mall, speaks during the press conference Saturday outside the Bridgewater Police Department.Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media
She added: “There’s so much going on in this country, so many deaths, I’m not going to wait for my nephew to die to stand up for him.”
The other teen from the fight, Joseph, who is of Hispanic and Middle Eastern descent and who spoke to NJ Advance Media, said he heard a group of kids were planning to “jump” another kid and sought to stop it. He said he confronted the seventh grader, one of Kye’s friends, and Kye stepped in. The pair exchanged words, each saying they could beat the other up, before it broke into a physical altercation.
NJ Advance Media is identifying the teens only by their first names because they are juveniles.
The incident garnered responses from Gov. Phil Murphy, who said he was “deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment,” and acting state Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who reminded police about a directive banning “racially-influenced policing in New Jersey.
The police officers’ conduct is under investigation by the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office.
Young said despite directives and an initiative under Murphy to get every cop in the state wearing body cameras, “we’re still getting beat down.”
Labor leader and activist Charles Hall suggested there was a systemic problem within the Bridgewater Police Department.
“These police officers, how could they exist without anyone knowing?” Hall asked rhetorically. “They couldn’t.
Bridgewater police officers watch the from inside the municipal building during the protest Saturday.Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media
The NAACP-NJ State Conference called on the department to remove the two officers involved in the incident pending the investigation.
Saturday’s rally featured familiar call-and-response chants, mostly led by Larry Hamm, a longtime Newark activist and chair of the People’s Organization for Progress: “No justice, no peace” and “No racist, police.”
The mood among speakers was one of frustration for how police treated Kye and relief that he wasn’t significantly injured.
“I was pissed,” said Tara Williams, 49, of Annandale, who attended the rally. “It’s just so clear. The white gentleman is on top. He gets escorted to a chair, and they clobber the young Black man. It just gets to a point where it’s so disappointing.”
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Josh Solomon may be reached at jsolomon@njadvancemedia.com.
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