by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
It was the day after Christmas and Barbara Pinkney was probably having a pretty good day. It was her birthday - a big one ending in zero. The Florida grandmother was enjoying her 70th!
But then there was a knock at the door of her home in Manatee County, Florida, fifty miles south of Tampa. Two sheriff's deputies stood in the doorway and demanded to enter so that they could search for Mrs. Pinkney's grandson, a young man who had reportedly violated parole by carrying a concealed weapon. Mrs. Pinckney asked to see a search warrant and was informed that the deputies had an arrest warrant for the grandson. She denied them entry, a commotion ensued in which the woman pushed back against one of the deputies, and all hell broke loose.
The older woman was tased, grabbed, pushed to the floor, and a deputy climbed on top of her forcing his knee into her back. And then, instead of taking the injured woman to a clinic or hospital - or wishing her a happy birthday - the deputies hauled her off to jail. She posted a $1,000 bond and is due in court on January 17th to face charges of obstructing justice and resisting arrest.
A relative who was inside the home managed to film most of the encounter, an inconvenience which has forced Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells to open an internal investigation to see if excessive force was used by the young, trained deputies. The sheriff went on record with:
Mrs. Pinkney is a black woman, a person who undoubtedly had an innate knowledge of the dangers associated with allowing - or not allowing - police into her home. One has to wonder what the official response would have been if the deputies had tased the white mother or grandmother of Sheriff Wells - or some other county officeholder or local plutocrat - and then thrown her to the ground and climbed on her back. Surely they would be in a jail cell and focused on updating their resumes.
But it's Florida, and people of a certain skin tone do not push back against John Law - and everyone knows it.
Citizen Journalist
It was the day after Christmas and Barbara Pinkney was probably having a pretty good day. It was her birthday - a big one ending in zero. The Florida grandmother was enjoying her 70th!
But then there was a knock at the door of her home in Manatee County, Florida, fifty miles south of Tampa. Two sheriff's deputies stood in the doorway and demanded to enter so that they could search for Mrs. Pinkney's grandson, a young man who had reportedly violated parole by carrying a concealed weapon. Mrs. Pinckney asked to see a search warrant and was informed that the deputies had an arrest warrant for the grandson. She denied them entry, a commotion ensued in which the woman pushed back against one of the deputies, and all hell broke loose.
The older woman was tased, grabbed, pushed to the floor, and a deputy climbed on top of her forcing his knee into her back. And then, instead of taking the injured woman to a clinic or hospital - or wishing her a happy birthday - the deputies hauled her off to jail. She posted a $1,000 bond and is due in court on January 17th to face charges of obstructing justice and resisting arrest.
A relative who was inside the home managed to film most of the encounter, an inconvenience which has forced Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells to open an internal investigation to see if excessive force was used by the young, trained deputies. The sheriff went on record with:
"From everything we can see at this point, it appears the deputy did what he had to do. We take allegations of excessive force seriously, which is why we have opened an internal investigation to gather all the facts."
Mrs. Pinkney is a black woman, a person who undoubtedly had an innate knowledge of the dangers associated with allowing - or not allowing - police into her home. One has to wonder what the official response would have been if the deputies had tased the white mother or grandmother of Sheriff Wells - or some other county officeholder or local plutocrat - and then thrown her to the ground and climbed on her back. Surely they would be in a jail cell and focused on updating their resumes.
But it's Florida, and people of a certain skin tone do not push back against John Law - and everyone knows it.
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