A New Jersey 15-year-old seen on cellphone video footage involved in a scuffle at Bridgewater Commons mall is also criticizing how the police treated the Black boy he fought, according to The Hill.
When the police arrived to break up the fight, a female officer is accused of shoving the 15-year-old identified as Joseph on the couch, where he remained as he watched both officers wrestle Z'Kye Husain to the ground, placing their knees on his back.
Joseph, whose father is Pakistani and mother is Colombian, said he didn't "understand why they arrested him and not me," according to NJ.com.
"I say that was just plain old racist. I don't condone that at all. Like I said, I even offered to get arrested," he said.
"I knew that was really bad," Joseph added. "I offered to get detained after Kye was detained, and they turned my offer down. I even asked why they detained Kye and not me, and they said because Kye was resisting."
After the event, an internal affairs investigation was launched, according to a post on Facebook.
Husain's family hired well-known civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who said the teen "was no more of a threat to those officers than the … teen who fought with him," according to The Guardian.
"This is another example of the kind of racial bias that we need to root out of our system of policing," Crump said.
The NAACP New Jersey State Conference demanded that the Bridgewater Police Department dismiss the two officers involved in the altercation.
Joseph said he has since received online threats, adding, "Basically, people [are] saying, 'I know who you are, you better watch your back.' There was one saying I should just kill myself," according to The Hill.
The mall banned both teens for three years, causing Joseph to lose his job at the mall's AMC movie theater.
