Ind. teen beaten by police faces new charges
Associated Press | March 10, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS -A biracial teenager whose beating at the hands of white Indianapolis police officers spurred protests by community groups and aggravated racial tensions has been arrested on drug- and gang-related charges.
Indianapolis Metropolitan police said they arrested 16-year-old Brandon Johnson and two of his older brothers Wednesday night at a home on the city’s east side where they found marijuana, a handgun and items with gang insignia as well as gang photos and paperwork and a police scanner.
A police report says Johnson and his brother, Miketavious Jackson, 19, face preliminary charges of felony and misdemeanor possession of marijuana and felony criminal gang activity, according to The Indianapolis Star.
Johnson’s other brother, Terrell Jackson, 18, faces preliminary charges of misdemeanor dangerous possession of a firearm and felony criminal gang activity.
Johnson’s two brothers were being held Thursday at the Marion County Jail pending March 15 court hearings, said jail spokesman Julio Fernandez. While Johnson is being housed at the county’s juvenile center, Lara Beck, the spokeswoman for the county prosecutor’s office, told WXIN-TV that no decision has been made on whether to waive the teen into the adult criminal justice system.
Johnson’s attorney, Stephen Wagner, did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the arrest.
In an interview with WXIN, Wagner questioned what he called the “excessive” number of officers involved in Wednesday’s arrests and claimed the Johnson family has been a victim of police harassment recently.
The Star reported that 14 police officers conducted Wednesday’s raid and made the arrests but that none of them were involved in Johnson’s arrest last year in which the teen’s face was left bloodied and bruised.
In that incident, police said Johnson, then 15, tried to incite a crowd when officers tried to arrest one of his brothers for allegedly breaking into an abandoned house in their neighborhood. Neither Johnson nor his brother was ever charged in that case.
Read more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-indianapolis-poli,0,5700722.story