August 21, 2012

A young man was brutally pinned down and beaten by Los Angeles police for skateboarding on the wrong side of the road, leaving him with a broken nose, a broken cheekbone and a concussion.

Ronald Weekley Jr., 20, had blood coming out of his mouth after four police officers punched him repeatedly in his face, even while he was pinned down with his arms behind his back.

The young man had been cited with resisting arrest after driving his skateboard on the wrong side of the street in front of his house. A friend of the man said Weekley was trying to avoid gangsters on the other side of the street when police asked him to stop.

Police then proceeded to tackle him.

“I turned around to two cops running directly at me and throwing me on the ground, putting my arms behind my back and tying my legs to my arms and telling me I was resisting arrest,” Weekley told KTLA-TV.

As neighbors watched the man get beaten on his front lawn, a local resident took a cell phone video of the disheartening moment.

Weekley recalls feeling helpless with four officers on top of him. While they were striking him in the face, all he could do was scream.

“Just to hear him scream on video, for them to beat him the way they did… The world is corrupt to me,” the mother told KTLA-TV, with tears in her eyes.

“I was like screaming because I thought they were going to kill him,”a witness told the television station.

“If you see the videotape, there are about three or four officers on top of my son,” Weekley’s father, Ronald Weekley Sr., said. “Then an officer comes into view, gets down on the ground and hits him in his face, and that’s something you can hear on the tape.”

The LAPD defended the arrest by claiming that Weekley was wanted on three outstanding misdemeanor arrest warrants for staying out past curfew. Los Angeles curfew law prohibits anyone under the age of 18 to stay outside after 10 pm.

The family of the police brutality victim says their son was racially profiled. They are demanding justice and changes within the LAPD. Police are investigating the incident.

A protest is being planned today for support of the injured man.

“I didn’t do anything. All I did was get on my skateboard,” Weekley said.

R-T.com