When you’re a law-abiding citizen who hasn’t done anything wrong, you don’t expect that a run-in with police is going to lead to one of your testιcles being ruptured. But anything can happen when dealing with the cops, especially for young black men.
Veronica Joyner, founder of the Mathematics, Civics & Sciences Charter School, is standing with one of her students, Darrin Manning, who went through an ordeal that has made millions of people cringe in agony.
According to Philly.com, Manning was with his friends on their way to a basketball game, and ended up dealing with police instead of playing that night. Manning says that he believes one of his friends made a smart remark at an officer who was staring at them, and when the officer came at them, they ran.
Manning says that since he didn’t do anything wrong, he thought that stopping would be OK. That is a decision that will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Photo Credit: Philly.com
Of course, the stories diverge at this point. The report filed by Officer Thomas Purcell says that the young men were running with ski masks on. But there were no ski masks, according to the students, just the scarves that had been given to them by the school.
He also says that the boy fought with him, hitting him three times and ripping off his radio. But there are no injuries to the officer.
But one injury is undeniable. Manning says that when the officer grabbed him, he was hit and a female officer did an overly aggressive pat down, grabbing his rear end and genιtalia. In fact, she grabbed so hard that she ruptured one of his testιcles.
“She patted me down and then she touched my b**t and then my private parts,” he said. “And then she grabbed and squeezed and pulled my private parts and I felt something pop.”
The boy was arrested for resisting arrest and reckless endangerment. But his injuries were so serious that he had to undergo emergency surgery the next day at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Doctors are saying that because of this incident, he may never be able to have children.
Ikea Coney, the boy’s mother, says that witnesses to the incident support her son’s description of events.
“There were all these cops and cops cars, and one kid,” one witness said.
Some people in the community wonder if officers reacted this way because it was a large group of black kids. According to the school, Manning is a straight-A student who has never gotten in trouble, even at school.
But Officer Purcell is hardly a model citizen. According to records in the Internal Affairs Office, he has had two citizen complaints filed for false arrest. But he was cleared in both cases.
“I blame myself,” the boy’s mother told Philly.com. “I taught my son to respect cops, not to fear them. Maybe if he was afraid, he would have run like the other boys and he would have been OK.”
The boy is still in a wheelchair days after the incident. It is currently under investigation.
(via kulturekritic.com)
