Eventually, nine officers from the Stockton Police Department arrive on scene to subdue the teen as a violent scene plays out in front of several bystanders, with at least one woman screaming at officers to unhand the boy, because he’s, “just a kid.”
As the 16-year-old black teenager, who was unarmed, continued to refuse to heed the officer’s orders, the confrontation became physical.
According to witnesses statements and [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dk6bXdBdVs&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-Dk6bXdBdVs&has_verified=1 t=_blank]video of the altercation, a Stockton PD officer trails after the defiant teenager and grabs the boy by the arm.
The teenager resists the officer’s grab, and that’s when the officer deploys a baton in an attempt to pin the boy the down. The boy is pinned down with the officer’s baton, as the males wrestle about the sidewalk. The officer strikes the teen in the face multiple times with his baton.
Witness Edgar Avendano filmed video of the event, and posted the following commentary to a social media account:
The cop was telling him to take a (seat) but the teen kept walking to his bus but the cop kept grabbing his arm & the kid took off the cop’s hand off his arm so the cop took out his baton & that’s when I started recording because everything happened too quick.
According to Stockton Police Department spokesman Joseph Silva, “For safety reasons, the officer told the young man to get on the sidewalk,” officer Joseph Silva said. “After the teenager refused to comply and used obscene language, the officer went over and a there was a scuffle.
“These things wouldn’t happen if people followed officers’ lawful instructions.”
The boy was placed into handcuffs by four other officers, and was taken into custody and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.
Stockton police are staging an internal review, as required because the use of force was involved.
