By MARCUS MILES
With social media and people talking, police brutality has been the topic of conversation with headline stories such as Colin Kaepernick protest and the Terrence Crutcher shooting.
On Oct 11, The Brothers Making A Difference (BMAD) presented ‘Know Your Rights’ on campus and the mission of this presentation is every American should know their rights when an encounter with the police occurs.
The event was hosted by BMAD President senior Brandon Petty 22, and Vice President senior Troy Reyes, 21. Both Petty & Reyes strongly suggest that young Americans should know their rights because people are losing their lives not knowing their rights.
BMAD is an umbrella organization under the BSU (Black Student Union) and their mission is to promote a enjoyable care free family oriented environment for all Ramapo students.
“As a young black man from a urban city, I have faced numerous incidents of police encounters,” Petty said. “Whether it was for me or someone else and I feel a lot of people are faced with these problems and are not sure on how to come up with a solution so I felt like we as a organization could teach students something they will never forget.”
In 2016, 754 people were killed by police authorities according Washingtonpost.com. 330 of them were minorities and most of the killings were presented on mainstream media outlets.
During the presentation, Petty and Reyes displayed a video featuring William “Billy” Murphy Jr. Murphy is an attorney and former judge in Baltimore, Maryland; he is well known as an advocacy for civil rights and he’s role during the Freddie Gray.
Reliving courtroom scenes
In the video, Murphy is in a courtroom with citizen and asked the audience to share their stories. As he hears their stories, Murphy gives feedback on what to do and things not do during a police stop. Murphy strongly believes if people what to save their lives and have no troubles with police authorities, knowing their rights could save their lives.
BMAD suggested to students to be respectful to police authorities while knowing your rights in a police stop.
“I understand what they are doing because this is an issue that’s is constantly on the news and social media outlets, them talking about it on campus is a step forward into the right direction,” Jesse Bastin 24, a senior, said.
FLEXYOURRIGHTS.ORG is the website that Murphy recommends if people want to know the do’s and don’ts with police. The website is an educational nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about understanding their rights during encounters with law enforcement.
The structure of the article was good, featuring some excellent quotes. I would have liked the Washington Post statistic to have been linked — that’s something I would have like to have read.