Bridgewater mall incident raises questions about policing and race | Mike Kelly

It seemed like another “George Floyd moment.” But was it really?

A police officer seemed to unfairly target a Black teen after a fight on a recent Saturday in a suburban New Jersey mall. The moment, captured on video, summoned up connections to the death of George Floyd two years ago on a Minneapolis street.

Should it have?

On that Saturday afternoon two weeks ago, crowds flocked to the Bridgewater Commons mall, which sits astride the flatlands and highways of Central New Jersey’s Somerset County. The COVID-19 pandemic was ebbing. Infection rates were dropping. People wanted to get back to some sort of normalcy — and, in New Jersey, that often involves strolling through a bustling mall.

Among the teenagers at the mall that day, however, an ominous rumor reportedly circulated: At some point, some students planned to start a fight.

That rumor turned out to be true.

On the mall's third floor, near an area set up with sofas where shoppers could take a break, two male teenagers squared off. One wore a white hoodie. The other, a blue sweatshirt. The teen in the white hoodie was Black. The boy in the blue sweatshirt was light skinned — and later described as white.

Since this is the 21st century, we have plenty of cellphone video footage of what happened next.

The boys broke into a verbal argument. We don’t really know why or what was said. At least one report indicated that one boy told the other to stop picking on a friend. Yet another report suggested that one of the boys asked the other if he planned to "jump someone." This was reportedly met with a challenge to fight outside the mall.

The boys inched closer to each other. The white teen in the blue sweatshirt pointed his finger at the Black teen in the white hoodie. When the Black teen slapped away the white teen's hand, punches were thrown.

The white teen seemed to quickly get the upper hand. He pushed the Black teen to a sofa, then tossed him to the floor.

Suddenly, two police officers arrived –— a male and a female.

The male officer wrestled the Black teen into a facedown, prone position. The officer pulled the boy's arms behind him and began to handcuff him — all the while keeping a knee pressed into the boy’s back.

The female officer, after pushing the white teen to the sofa, appeared to order him to sit there and not move. She did not attempt to handcuff him.

Instead, the female officer moved to help her partner handcuff the Black teen — even appearing to place her knee on or near the boy’s neck.

The subsequent video of this confrontation went viral, accompanied by the inevitable and important question: Why did the cops appear to treat the white kid differently from the Black kid?

Adding to that question was the footage of police officers appearing to use their knees to subdue yet another Black suspect. The episode evoked some of the horrific scenes from nearly two years ago when Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin pushed his knee into the neck of George Floyd and eventually choked the life out of him.

Chauvin was later sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of murder and manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights. On Thursday, three other Minneapolis officers were convicted on federal civil rights charges for refusing to intervene and stop Chauvin from kneeling on Floyd's neck.

What took place at the Bridgewater Commons mall, however, was not the same as what took place with George Floyd on that Minneapolis street. Yes, the resulting questions were similar in nature. But the facts differ.

That is important. In America's racial history, nuance sometimes gets lost. This time, nuance is important.

The Black teen at the Bridgewater Commons mall was not killed, but the episode still raised questions of how police in America interact with Black citizens.

In one of the videos that captured the fight and the police response, a bystander can be heard saying: “Yo, it’s because he’s Black.”

Why do cops keep treating Black people differently?

Those sentiments are important. They reflect a fear among nonwhites that cops will treat them differently. Police and their supporters don't like to hear that. But it's a truth now in America. And now, once again, in yet another video, America came face to face with the same painful paradox that swept through the nation in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Why do these kinds of incidents continue to take place in a nation of such diversity and such sophistication? Or to put it more bluntly: Why did these officers seem to treat two participants in a brawl in a shopping mall so differently?

The cops involved are not talking — not publicly. Once again, America has been confronted with a litany of questions of police behavior. But, once again, police have become the symbolic equivalent of monks with a vow of silence.

The Bridgewater police department issued a carefully worded statement on its Facebook page. The department said that “we recognize that this video has made members of our community upset” and that the department is “thankful for our community partners and look forward to continuing to build our positive relationships.” (Really now?) The police department then went on to say that it is conducting an internal investigation with the help of the Somerset County prosecutor.

In politics and in keeping with the need of government bureaucracies to try to reassure constituents — often clumsily — such a statement is what is known as buying time to figure out what to do. Simply put: it's not enough. Black citizens deserve more. Will there be a public report on the investigation? Who knows?

The New Jersey NAACP, the state’s most prominent civil rights advocacy group, did not hold back in its criticism. “When Bridgewater police found two youths fighting,” the NAACP said in a letter, “the immediate reaction was to aggressively throw the Black child to the ground” while “at the same time the white youth” was “carefully eased on to a couch and treated like a victim.”

The NAACP also demanded the officers be suspended during the investigation. So far, the Bridgewater police have not even released the names of the officers — or any background information on them, such as how long they have been on the force.

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Meanwhile, a day after the video made the rounds of just about every social media platform known to humankind, Gov. Phil Murphy also chimed in. Murphy said he was “deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment.” And obviously recognizing the delicate politics of the moment, the governor added that he wanted to “emphasize” that his administration was “committed to increasing the trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”

In politics, this is what is known as trying to put out all the fires -- before they start.

Last, but hardly inconsequential, both fighters decided to talk. And this is where this incident takes on a perplexing and nuanced twist.

The Black teen, Z’Kye Husain, did not apologize for fighting at a crowded mall. But he said that if the police “don’t know how to deal with the situation equally and fairly, they shouldn’t be dealing with the situation at all.” He did not offer any suggestion on who should have dealt with "the situation."

He’s an eighth grader, in case you wondered.

Husain's family is now being represented by noted civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who quickly declared: “This is another example of the kind of racial bias that we need to root out of our system of policing.”

The other teen, Umar Joseph Franco, 15 of Raritan, is a high school sophomore. While described as “white” in some initial media reports, Franco has now identified as Hispanic and Asian, with ancestral roots in Columbia and Pakistan.

Franco claimed in an interview with MyCentralJersey.com that he offered to get arrested. One video even appears to support that claim, showing Franco rising from his seat on the sofa and placing his hands together to be handcuffed as the police subdue the Black teen on the ground.

The video shows the female officer ordering Franco to take a seat. He does just that and quiets down. So much for offering to get arrested.

"I thought it was wrong because they arrested him and not me. I was confused because I offered for them to arrest me because I knew it was wrong," Franco said in the interview with MyCentralJersey.com. As for Husain, his opponent in the mall brawl, Franco added: "I didn't see him resisting at all" and "I know what the cops did was wrong, so they should have consequences."

“I don’t understand why they arrested him and not me,” Franco told NJ Advance Media. “I say that was just plain old racist. I don’t condone that at all. Like I said, I even offered to get arrested.”

Questions need answering

All of these facts bring us to this question: What should we make of this?

For starters, we need to know more about this fight. Both Z'Kye Husain and Umar Joseph Franco have been remarkably unresponsive in explaining why they started punching each other. Details matter here. How did these two teens come together? Were they looking for a fight?

Just as important, both teens have been unremorseful in declining to accept responsibility for what appears to be a stupid decision to square off in a crowded shopping mall. It would be nice to hear apologies from both of them. Both have been banned from the mall for three years. But that's hardly much of a punishment. New Jersey has plenty of other malls they can visit.

Second, what did the police see when they approached this fight? The video clearly shows one officer wrestling the Black teen to the ground, with the other officer taking a less aggressive stance. Why? Was this just a matter of style and different habits by two officers? Or did one officer sense that the Black teen was more aggressive? If so, why?

Police work — and the split-second decisions that accompany it — is immensely difficult. We all need to acknowledge that essential fact. One officer might decide to pull a gun — and even fire it — in a tense situation, while another might take cover and call for backup. In judging this situation at the mall, it’s important to realize that two officers were involved, perhaps with very different views of what to do.

Still, the police response as captured on video does not build trust in the nonwhite community. If cops don't see this video as a problem, they are missing the whole point of what happened to George Floyd and the resulting uproar across America.

What will build trust is transparency and a clear explanation by police of what took place. We need this explanation soon. We can’t wait a year. If mistakes were made, admit them. If not, tell us why.

Finally, this disturbing video should remind us of the need for improved training for police.

Yes, much has been said about the need to re-imagine how police are trained -- and why that training in far too many policy academies still takes on a military-like tone. But nearly two years after Floyd was murdered, that push for new training is still mostly in the talking stage.

Once again, America has watched police rush into a highly charged scene. This was not a repeat of what happened to Floyd on that Minneapolis street. But, once again, we are still asking questions and awaiting answers.

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in New Jersey, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com

Twitter: @mikekellycolumn

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bridgewater NJ mall fight raises questions about policing and race