Rashan Charles died in the early hours of Saturday morning after being chased and was then apprehended by a police officer in a shop in Hackney, London.
After trying to stop Rashan’s car, CCTV footage from the Yours Truly shop shows Rashan walking into the shop and the police officer running after him, attempting to take him out of there. This is when Rashan was tackled to the ground, clearly showing that the police were using excessive force.
Police officers are not exempt from the law, for they too should be held accountable for their actions. Based on what we’ve seen, nothing can really justify the unnecessary actions that were taken to slam him or force him down.
This story is still developing but one of the reasons for this widespread outrage is due to the lack of coverage from mainstream media. This happens time and time again yet it still surprises us that incidents like this can occur without a word from platforms like the BBC until we have to make it a trending topic.
Without the CCTV footage coming to light, this may still have been something we were unaware of. More needs to be done about the way the police handle people of colour, because if you are specially trained officers, should this really happen? Rashan’s death has reminded us all that police brutality isn’t just prominent in America.
Many have jumped on twitter in defence of the officer, claiming that if the young man had not resisted he may still have been alive today. This is absurd. Resisting shouldn’t result in a death sentence.
Rashan Jermaine Charles deserved a fair trial but instead, he gets a funeral.
To support his family and friends with the funeral you can donate through GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/justiceforrash
