Actor and activist Kendrick Sampson recently revealed that he was assaulted by police on a street in Colombia.
The Insecure star posted a video to Instagram this week of him and a young man being stopped by police in Cartagena, Colombia. In the post, Sampson wrote that the encounter in the video was one of a handful of times that police stopped him, a phenomenon he said often happens to Black Colombians.
“I’m told stopping is policy but what is NOT is they reached down my underwear aggressively, slap my arms 5 times hard, punch me in my jaw and pull his gun on me,” Sampson wrote.
In the video, an officer is seen punching Sampson, resulting in the actor falling to the ground, and withdrawing his gun from its holster before the video loops.
“He then cuffed me and dragged me through the streets. I did not resist any legal procedure,” the 32-year-old wrote.
According to Variety, police officials defended the officers in a statement to a Colombian national newspaper, El Tiempo, saying they engaged in “legitimate” use of force during the encounter. Commander of the Cartegena police, General Henry Armando Sanabria Cely told El Tiempo that Sampson had resisted a police search and attempted to reach into a bag. According to Cely, Sampson was cited for disrespecting law enforcement authority and contempt of an officer. Columbian police authorities said that they alerted U.S. officials in Cartagena of the incident.
Colombian actress Natalia Reyes also shared the video on Tuesday and spoke out against the officers' use of force.
“Today this happened to him here in Cartagena and everything hurts, not only because he is a friend but because that is the day-to-day of many, because we got used to this and that is NOT okay, it’s not normal, the police have the right to ask for your ID but they don’t have the right to punch you, dig in your underwear (as happened before someone started filming) and pull a gun on a person who is not committing any crime or offering any resistance,” she wrote.
As Blavity previously reported, Sampson has been honing in on community advocacy through his nonprofit, BLD PWR, since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered most people to the confines of their homes.
Sampson’s nonprofit is a non-partisan, grassroots liberation endeavor focused on social justice, via highlighting movements and change agents.
With social distancing changing how protests and demonstrations can be organized, Sampson said that the goal of his community-inspired work hasn’t changed but he wants to find new ways to connect with people.
“Doing more lives, texting, and Zoom meetings and FaceTimes, just trying to organize digitally. Black folks are being disproportionately affected by this crisis, so we were already fighting that before and it’s every single crisis. So, it’s keeping me busy,” he told Blavity.
Earlier this year, Sampson participated in Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles following the death of George Floyd. While at the protests, he was seen being struck by a police baton. He later posted images of the wounds he received after being hit by rubber bullets, Deadline reported.
“Y’all didn’t see police attacking white folks, beating ’em up with batons, shooting them with rubber bullets when they brought guns to f**king statehouses,” he said during an Instagram Live video.
