Video shows officer holding Black teens at gunpoint

A police department in Jonesboro, Georgia, has released bodycam footage, surveillance video and 911 audio calls after a bystander video posted on social media showed a police officer holding five Black teenagers at gunpoint as several passers- by stop and plead with the officer not to shoot.

Two 911 calls alleged that the teens were fighting outside a convenience store and had a gun. According to the bodycam footage, as soon as the officer spots the teenagers, who were walking down a road, he gets out of his car, immediately draws his gun and shouts at them: “Stop, all of y’all stop! Get your hands up!” and asks the teens to walk toward him.

“Due to the allegation that the juveniles were in possession of a gun, the officer approached them with his duty weapon drawn and pointed at the juveniles,” the Clayton County Police Department said in a statement, according to CNN.

The bystanders plead with the officer, saying things like: “They’re kids” and “They’re babies.”

According to the bodycam footage, the officer has his gun drawn for more than four minutes until backup arrives and they search the teenagers. The officer then questions the teenagers, who told him that they were “play fighting.”

The surveillance footage shows a few of the teenagers shadow boxing in a parking lot and tossing about what appears to be a handgun. The teens told the officer it was a BB gun and the footage shows the officers trying to retrieve it after one of the teens said he threw it in bushes near the store.

CNN reported that no arrests were made and no charges were filed.

Statue of Arthur Ashe defaced in Richmond, Virginia

A statue of tennis legend Arthur Ashe was spray painted with the words

“White Lives Matter” and “WLM” on Wednesday in Richmond, Virginia.

Ashe is the only Black man to win Wimbledon and the U. S. and Australian Opens. Throughout his career and afterward, Ashe fought for racial equality and civil rights, notably the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. He died in 1993.

The statue of Ashe was one of six on Monument Avenue in Richmond. The other five monuments commemorated the Confederacy, including Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Jefferson Davis, J. E. B. Stuart and Matthew Fontaine Maury. Protesters toppled the Davis statue last week.

After days of protests over racial inequality and police brutality, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the Lee statue removed “as soon as possible” on June 3. Mayor Levar Stoney later said he will propose the removal of the other Confederate statues.

– Chris Bumbaca

Car driven into protesters in Oregon strikes three people

Protests raged on in downtown Portland, Oregon, again late Tuesday night. A little after 1 a. m., police say a car hit a group of demonstrators and three people were taken to the hospital.

“The vehicle struck several demonstrators and left at a high rate of speed, driving the wrong way on streets,” police said in a statement. “It appeared to be followed by several other vehicles that were associated with the protesters.”

All injuries are not believed to be lifethreatening.

Air support officers tracked the driver’s location and eventually arrested Anthony Eaglehorse- Lassandro, 27, who was charged with three counts of felony hit and run, reckless driving and possession of a controlled substance.