Police Cannot Rid Themselves Of The Racism Embedded In Their Psyches…

A woman was arrest­ed in Westminster, Colorado, on Jan. 24 fol­low­ing an argu­ment with a man out­side of a Party City store. Charleene Gibson was arrest­ed fol­low­ing an alter­ca­tion with the man near 92^nd Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. 
Gibson was arrest­ed after the inci­dent took place in front of the par­ty sup­plies store in sub­ur­ban Denver with a man who tried to take a pic­ture of her car parked near the entrance. However, Gibson said she was there to stock up on sup­plies for her birth­day and had parked close to the front door after receiv­ing per­mis­sion from the store clerk. “The Party City employ­ee said it was OK to park there for a few min­utes while we load bal­loons in the car. I stayed in the car and turned my haz­ards on,” said Gibson. Gibson said she stepped in front of his lens when the man tried to take a pic­ture of her car after com­plain­ing she’d blocked the curb ramp. Gibson said that’s when the man attacked her and hit her sev­er­al times before she struck him back. “Then he grabbed me,” she said. “And punched me in my jaw, and then he yanked me again and then punched me two times right here, and that’s when I start­ed to punch him back.”A video of the arrest went viral, which cap­tured the police arrest­ing Gibson as a friend who wit­nessed the argu­ment, NiaShay Burns, record­ed the arrest on her cell­phone. Burns is heard on the video repeat­ed­ly say­ing, “He hit her first!”

Burns can be heard on the video telling the offi­cers that three women plus anoth­er wit­ness were telling them that the man hit her first as a male offi­cer hand­cuffed Gibson. A female offi­cer moved to arrest Gibson’s sis­ter Amber after she seem­ing­ly began to try to walk away from the scene after see­ing Gibson being put in hand­cuffs. As the offi­cer shoved Amber against a vehi­cle, Burns cried out, “She didn’t do any­thing!” The female offi­cer lat­er grabbed Gibson’s arm forcibly and escort­ed her to one of sev­er­al police vehi­cles as Burns again told the offi­cers, “You guys! He hit her first!” After ask­ing the police offi­cers if the man was going to jail, one of the police offi­cers told Burns that the man would be receiv­ing a cita­tion and was not being arrest­ed. “So, he’s not going to jail, but he hit her first, and he’s a man and she’s a woman,” Burns replied. “Wait, wait, I’m con­fused.” “I under­stand that,” replied one police offi­cer. “We can go over this at f— court, OK?” Burns lat­er cap­tured the man stand­ing in the door­way of the store and said, “This man punched my cousin in the face, and he’s not going to jail but she is.” Gibson was arrest­ed for 3^rd-degree felony assault of an at-risk adult because of the man’s age. He is 74 years old. Burns shared the video on TikTok with the cap­tion, “Went to jail for defend­ing her­self while the guy a white man at that who punched her got a sum­mons share this help us fight this.”

According to local reports, the man received a tick­et for mis­de­meanor third-degree assault as well as dis­or­der­ly con­duct. The man told the police that Gibson knocked his phone out of his hand. One wit­ness claimed that the women assault­ed the man after cor­ner­ing him, but anoth­er said that the man punched Gibson in the face and that the oth­er two women came and tried to help her. “When we were tus­sling and mov­ing around, my sis­ter Amber was try­ing to get him off of me,” said Gibson. “He was antag­o­niz­ing us, say­ing stuff like ‘bring it on.’” Local news out­let 9News report­ed that after they began ask­ing ques­tions regard­ing the arrest video, the Westminster Police Department called Gibson to advise her they were no longer charg­ing her with felony assault and had down­grad­ed her charge to mis­de­meanor dis­or­der­ly con­duct. The WPD claimed the wit­ness­es gave con­flict­ing state­ments and they dropped the felony charge after talk­ing with the District Attorney. Additionally, an inves­ti­ga­tion has been launched into how the offi­cers han­dled the arrest. Burns is cer­tain that with­out that video evi­dence, Gibson would still be fac­ing a felony charge. “If I didn’t have my phone and I didn’t take it out in this sit­u­a­tion, she would have got­ten a felony charge.” Burns said. “I don’t want to sug­ar­coat it, but I do — like, that’s what it is. It’s because of the col­or of our skin,” added Gibson. “It’s the fact that we were upset and express­ing our­selves —that I went to jail.” (Atlantablackstar​.com)