http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/03/university-of-virginia-student-police-brutality
*an investigation
link to a longer article
Here’s a link with some video. Also, his roommate has said that Martese Johnson does not have any fake ID.
http://jezebel.com/heres-video-of-martese-johnsons-arrest-and-a-statement-1692245408
Frankly, it’s heartbreaking to hear him say, “how can this happen?” over and over again.
He’s been charged with two misdemeanors: obstruction of justice without force and profane swearing and/or intoxication in public. He was not charged with having a fake ID.
I guess they felt like they had to go through the motions of charging him with something since they beat him and cuffed him. Swearing in public? Who wouldn’t do that under the circumstances?
Swearing in public is a crime?
I would be permanently in jail. 
That is a pretty damnng photo.
The video started a little too late…
I’m trying to understand why either of those misdemeanors would justify slamming his head into the pavement so hard he needed 10 stitches. Funny, we don’t hear about white UVa students ending up in the hospital getting stitched up after they had a run-in with the cops for being drunk. What a coincidence that this just happened to be an African American kid. Perhaps white UVa students aren’t drunk in public. Yeah, that’s it.
This reminds me of a case at UMD where a student was beaten by police. They claimed that the boy had attacked them and that he must have been accidentally struck in the head by one of their horse’s hooves. Then the video surfaced - and showed him skipping down the street, skipping like a happy kid, until one of the officers slams him into a wall and several of them whack him in the head with their batons. He’s in law school now and the one cop that was convicted and slapped on the wrist had his conviction overturned. (fyi - this student was white)
The ABC cops were involved in this case, not too long ago, where they arrested some young women for buying La Croix sparkling water, cookie dough, and ice cream for an Alzheimer’s benefit. The cops thought it was beer:
The car’s driver was charged with a felony and had this to say about it after she was cleared:
What she got was a settlement to avoid a lawsuit (something tells me Martese will too).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/31/uva-student-bottled-water-arrest-settlement_n_5638428.html
ETA - it was the ABC cops who also assaulted Martese Johnson.
I know one of the articles mentioned it, but some of you might have missed it. Alcohol Beverage Control is the same law enforcement agency that pulled guns on a UVA student a few years ago because they thought she was underage and buying beer. In reality she was buying bottled water. They were in plain clothes and she drove off fearing for her life after they pulled their guns on her without identifying themselves. They charged her with all sorts of felonies, including assault of a police officer (or something similarly bad).
The judge threw out all charges and she received a big settlement. Now the same agency is under scrutiny in the same city.
Edit- cross posted with @greenwitch
Greenwitch and TV4caster are on the same page.
Obviously…the previous $200,000+ settlement wasn’t large enough.
Martese Johnson is going to have to get a lot more so this behavior by the ABC cops stops.
anyone know why the ABC folks in VA are cop-like? Is this common in other states? (I really have no idea.)
Why don’t they just stick to issuing license infractions/suspenesion to the bars that serve underage and let real cops do the police work, like busting kids for swearing.
^ I was going to ask the same question. The concept of ABC having that type of role and enforcement power seems so foreign to me where I live.
Charlottesville and UVa just can’t seem to stay out of the news this academic year. Hard not to think that race played a role here.
VA seems to have a bee in it’s bonnet about alcohol. I remember going to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg with my family and trying to get a meal. There were separate lines for beer and for food. Of course, we split up to minimize the time spent on line.
But, they would only sell you one beer per person - even if it was non-alcoholic beer! That was the state law, they told me. :-/
Didn’t the supreme court rule some years ago that foul language can be protected speech?
Is it profane swearing or is it intoxication in public? The ‘and/or’ thing is confusing. Apparently, he was trying to get into a pub while being underage.
This is not unusual in Virginia. To have a license to serve alcohol food must also be served and a certain ratio of food to alcohol sales must be maintained - you don’t have to be 21 to be inside, you just can’t purchase alcohol. That becomes problematic at certain times - so if your kitchen is closed, you probably wouldn’t admit under 21 year olds.
At this point, nothing suggests he was in possession of a fake id. It seems more likely the arrest was for drunk in public - but then the question is why was he, of all the individuals drinking on Saint Patrick’s Day, singled out for questioning?
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/03/johnson-warrant-of-arrest
The vast majority of teachers and administrators at all levels of education in the U.S. are eager to give minorities the benefit of any doubt. So if bias of the type u mention exists, I don’t think it’s as widespread as you are implying.
From what I’ve read, he didn’t have a fake ID.http://abcnews.go.com/US/excessive-force-eyed-arrest-uva-student-alcohol-agents/story?id=29738514
I hear you.