Warning: Contains graphic and disturbing content.
On Friday afternoon, Bushwick Daily’s attention was directed to an upsetting piece of documentation by a tipster who had been passing through the Myrtle-Broadway JMZ station shortly before 9pm on Thursday night whereupon they encountered the aftermath of a violent arrest, which witnesses informed them had escalated quickly and ended with responding NYPD officers dealing a nightstick blow to the head of a civilian. Myrtle-Broadway is far from desolate at 9pm on a Thursday, so many noted the incident, although the exact nature of what had happened was unclear to some.
Didn’t see it myself but bystanders report PO struck individual they were arresting in head, srs bleeding. MyrtleBwy pic.twitter.com/JpuVkC9oNZ
— Brandon (@brandonzwa) November 21, 2014
WTF is happening at Myrtle-Broadway!?
— Jesse Green (@bunkerlabs) November 21, 2014
Cop just slammed kid over the head w/ billy club at Myrtle-Broadway train stop for no reason, blood everywhere. pic.twitter.com/0agDvTfM1L
— Marielle Anas (@marielleanas) November 21, 2014
@emiliesaysthat A teenage-ish white girl w blood on her face resisting arrest?I think? Bodega guy told me some1 jumped from the platform tho
— Bolt Brown (@BoltBrown) November 21, 2014
A video shot by YouTube User Skuf YKK leaves viewers with no doubt about the specifics of what happened. Viewers be warned, the first few moments of the video are where the most disturbing moments occur.
Gothamist’s Lauren Evans reports that the citizen in the video is 20-year-old Donovan Lawson, who resisted arrest after attempting to fare-beat. Lawson was taken to Woodhull Hospital and treated for cuts to the head, and the incident is under investigation by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs bureau; this occurred hours before an unarmed 28-year-old father was shot and killed by NYPD officers in an East New York Housing project, which is also currently under internal investigation.
Members of the community have lots of anguish and frustration to express about the incident. It seems unlikely that anyone who watched the footage of the attack, which starts with a sickeningly audible nightstick blow, will be able to forget it any time soon. In a Facebook post expressing her grief and outrage over the incident, Jazmin Colon, a Bushwick resident, East New York native, mother of a teenage son and director the Educated Little Monsters Youth Group, made a sobering yet appropriate declaration: “”I don’t want to see anyone else’s son become a hashtag.”
This is #nypd brutality on a young man for hopping the turnstile in Brooklyn https://t.co/KUQao4zSyU @ACLU @Copwatch @CopWatchNYC #todaysnews
— KET (@alanket) November 21, 2014
NYPD officer cracks dude in head with a nightstick at Myrtle/Broadway train station smh https://t.co/MZxHF4okMe
— Grid Poppa (@griddy) November 21, 2014
couldnt even watch that whole video from Myrtle-Broadway. heartbreaking
— wintercute (@Isfet) November 21, 2014
Peace & Blessings to the young black make the police abused at Myrtle Broadway n busted his head open with a night stick all cuz he hopped
— JointMasterFlex ICK (@Eazyyduzit) November 21, 2014
It seems unlikely that anyone who watched the footage of the attack, which starts with a sickeningly audible nightstick blow, will be able to forget it any time soon. In a Facebook post expressing her grief and outrage over the incident, Jazmin Colon, a Bushwick resident, East New York native, mother of a teenage son and director the Educated Little Monsters Youth Group, made a sobering yet appropriate declaration: “”I don’t want to see anyone else’s son become a hashtag.”