Boy in NJ mall fight says cops were ‘racist’ to only handcuff black teen
A New Jersey boy caught up in a mall fight that went viral is calling out cops for handcuffing a black teen but not detaining him, saying officers acted “just plain old racist.”
A 15-year-old of Colombian and Pakistani descent named Joseph said he was trying to stop the Feb. 12 caught-on-video brawl at Bridgewater Commons Mall and even suggested to be handcuffed himself after cops slapped them on 14-year-old Z’Kye Husain, who is black, NJ.com reported.
“I don’t understand why they arrested him and not me,” Joseph told the outlet Friday. “I say that was just plain old racist. I don’t condone that at all. Like I said, I even offered to get arrested.”
Video showed the teens exchanging punches and shoving each other, but responding Bridgewater cops forcefully restrained Z’Kye and handcuffed the eighth-grader while Joseph was left to sit on a couch.
Joseph said rumors were flying that a group of teens planned to attack another boy at the mall, but the youngster never showed up. The 15-year-old then confronted another teen, a seventh-grader who allegedly planned to instigate the brawl that later took place when Z’Kye stepped up for his friend, NJ.com reported.
“I knew that was really bad,” Joseph said of the officers’ conduct seen in the footage. “I even offered to get handcuffed, I offered to get detained after Kye was detained, and they turned my offer down. I even asked why they detained Kyle and not me, and they said because Kye was resisting.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Z’Kye and his mother, has called on Bridgewater police to fire the officers involved, alleging they “blatantly” racially profiled the black teen.
“The only thing they saw was he was on top of me,” Z’Kye told The Post Friday. “I was scared and it made me think. It made me feel small and inferior; like I was like less important than the older kid.”
Z’Kye’s mother has also been told by the head of mall security that she’d be responsible for the cost of a table broken during the fight, Crump said in a statement to The Post Monday.
“This offensive and unacceptable demand of payment continues to exemplify the disparate treatment of white families and Black families in America,” Crump said. “The only people who should be asked to pay for the damaged table are those who engaged in biased policing and caused it to be damaged.”
Neither teen was charged and Z’Kye was released into the custody of his mother some 30 minutes after the fight, he said. Both he and Joseph have been banned from the mall for three years.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has said he was “deeply disturbed” by the apparent “racially disparate” response by the officers seen in the footage. An internal review by police department officials is ongoing as the Somerset County prosecutor looks into the matter.
“We recognize that this video has made members of our community upset and are calling for an internal affairs investigation,” Bridgewater police said in a statement last week. “The officers were able to respond quickly to this incident and stop it from escalating because of a tip we received from the community.”
Z’Kye’s mother said she contacted Crump in search of “equal justice” in the incident, which has been tough on both her and her teen son.
“He’s been stressed out. It’s taken a toll on everyone’s mental health, I can’t even work. So it’s taken a toll,” Z’Kye mother, Ebone, told The Post. “He can’t live without thinking about the same night over and over again. On top of the fact that he went through it.”
Z’Kye was luckily unhurt, Crump said, but could’ve been seriously injured or even killed during the interaction with police.
“If you don’t do anything about this, next time it can end up a Trayvon Martin or Ahmaud Arbery,” Crump said. “So that’s why we’re so convicted to say this has to have accountability.”
Joseph, meanwhile, said he’s being trolled online by some hateful critics who called him a “racist white teen” while making thinly veiled threats, NJ.com reported.
“Basically, people saying, ‘I know who you are, you better watch your back,’” the teen said. “There was one saying I should kill myself.”
Attempts by The Post to reach Joseph on Monday were unsuccessful.
The mall ban will severely impact the teen, since he works at a movie theater there. Joseph said he regrets getting involved in the fight, but had no explanation for the officers’ “plain racist” response.
“I wish I would have been the bigger man and walked out,” Joseph told NJ.com.
