Picketers protest teen's treatment by cop

People upset about the treatment of a 16-year-old boy by a police officer protested in downtown Kalamazoo Friday morning.

[Angered parent]

This officer should be fired and charged with aggravated assault on a miner. Only in Michigan is this behavior condoned by the powers that be there is a misuse of authority constantly, Who is policing the police? this is one of the reasons i moved my family from this God forsaken State. In the words of that famous group NWA F&^% the police.

[pwner]

Only in Michigan?

Puleeeeeeeeeeeeeez!!!!!!

You don't get out much do you?

What's the NWA anyway? National Whiners Association? Not all cops are bad and not all black people are thugs. There can be right and wrong on both sides at the same time ya know.

If you are going to type gross generalities you are going to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[dwhitebull]

i'm disapointed on the way this incident is being reported, by kalamazoo and wood tv. this has nothing to do with how this juevinial commited crimes in the past and that is how they are turning this around, instead of reporting the real story....how this young boy was slammed face first into a wall and lost some teeth and sustained other injurys. if this was your child you would be outraged and would have been on that picket line !!!!!stop censorship..........

[michael g]

Angered parent wrote:

This officer should be fired and charged with aggravated assault on a miner. Only in Michigan is this behavior condoned by the powers that be there is a misuse of authority constantly, Who is policing the police? this is one of the reasons i moved my family from this God forsaken State. In the words of that famous group NWA F&^% the police.

How exactly do you know that the kid worked in a mine??? He didn't appear to be wearing a miner's helmet. And wouldn't that violate child labor laws?? I think Moleholm should call for an investigation.

[larry]

if you do to a police officer. what the officer did to the teenager. you would face serious assault charges no doubt. the law applies to everyone.

[Jerry]

If you listen to all the details concerning the history fo this teenager, it is obvious the police are tired of dealing with him. He has over twenty situations concerning court. The system has not already locked him up because he is not competent. So the police have to deal with his sorry **** on a continued bases. It all stems down to parenting. This kid has never had a father figure to show him the ropes. Now unfortunately he will probably be seeing monkey bars his whole life.

[afraid of kzoo cops]

If the cop busted out 3 teeth of a white woman he would have been fired, but since it's a black child he gets a slap on the wrist.
The bad cop should be fired and charged with violating the child's civil rights or with assault.

[Pearline]

It is quite interesting to see the postings from people out of the area (and out of state) who know nothing about this situation. Putting the youngster to the wall would have been very effective, but this time the juvenile lost three teeth from the exercise. The officer never intended for that to happen. He was attempting to take control of the young man, but that was tough to do. If he had been a compliant youth, he never would have been in the police station at all. He was not at school where he should have been, nor did his guardian have any clue what he was doing. The officer was assigned to clean up the Transportation Center, which he was trying to do. He has accepted his penalty, admitted he should not have done what he did and he is moving on in life. You cannot fire someone when he has been judged, punished and taken his suspension. So stop crying out, "Fire him, Fire him, Fire him."