D.C. Metro Police responded to a viral video that quickly drew backlash online after it was purported to show a group of officers pulling down a Black teen’s pants to search him.
That video, originally posted by Chuck Modi on X and Instagram, has amassed hundreds of thousands of views since it was posted on Saturday, April 27.
It shows police crouching down behind the boy and pointing a flashlight at his rear end while his hands are cuffed behind him. Many viewers decried what looked like unethical and invasive police conduct on display.
That weekend, several protests broke out in the D.C. area against the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s ongoing war campaign in Palestine. Police stopped the boy as he was riding his bike through a protest outside the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents Dinner was held.
Atlanta Black Star reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department for details. A spokesperson confirmed that multiple officers stopped the boy for attempting to ride through the protest because it was dangerous, but no criminal charges resulted from the stop.
“Officers stopped a juvenile male for attempting to ride a bike through a demonstration. The juvenile did not obey lawful commands given by officers on scene. A stop was conducted, and he was sent on his way,” the spokesperson told Atlanta Black Star.
The Metropolitan Police rep also clarified that the police officers in the video were captured trying to loosen the teen’s handcuffs after he complained that they were too tight.
Modi posted his interview with a bystander who spoke with a Black officer at the scene of the teen’s detainment. That officer told her the boy refused to turn around after being told by police to find a different bike route, so they detained him. She said she saw at least three or four officers tackle him to the ground.
When she asked the officer why they arrested the boy, he reportedly told her, “You don’t know if this kid was on his way to kill somebody. You don’t know if he had a bomb or a knife or if he was planning to rob someone.”
After Columbia University students launched numerous protests against the Israel-Hamas war, other colleges and universities have followed suit. Many students have been arrested by police and suspended from their universities for refusing to comply with curfews enforced by university administrations.
In D.C., students and faculty members from Georgetown University, American University, George Mason University, the University of Maryland, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Howard University, and Gallaudet University joined forces to launch a combined demonstration last Friday, according to Instagram posts.
Outside the Washington Hilton, protesters crying, “Free Palestine” lined the way into the hotel that journalists, politicians, and celebrities had to take to get inside. During Biden’s 10-minute speech at the correspondents’ dinner where he repeatedly told jokes about Donald Trump, but no mention of the war in Gaza.
