A black 12-year-old boy’s mother alleges that her son was placed in a stop-and-frisk position by his school’s white security guard as a back-to-school “joke” on Tuesday.
Brandiss Pearson says that she was taking photos of her son Brandon — who has Down Syndrome — inside the school when a guard put him up against the wall with his hands above his head. “And he starts laughing and says, ‘Now take the picture, he’s in the right position,”’ she told the Syracuse Post-Standard. Because it’s not like black men are subjected to that all the time in real life!
Fortunately, Pearson and her family don’t think Brandon understood what the guard was implying because he just kept smiling. The family, though, was understandably upset. “I was shaking, just like fire-breathing mad,” Pearson said. ”All he saw was a little black boy who needed to assume the position.”
The boy’s grandfather initially took a photo of the incident, but deleted it because “he did not want to relive that moment one more second,” she said.
After Pearson reported the incident, the guard was quickly placed on administrative leave. The school district said it has received the complaint and “will not be releasing any more information at this time.”
