Michael Brown Sr. & Lesley McSpadden.
(Photo Credit: go.com)
CNN is reporting that the parents of Michael Brown, 18, a Missouri teen killed by police officer Darren Wilson, 28, have gone to Geneva, Switzerland to testify in front of a United Nations committee in hopes that it will bring awareness to the shooting of their son as well as other cases of police brutality.
Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden spoke to the U.N. committee against cruel or degrading treatment used by government authorities. McSpadden told CNN in Geneva:
“We need the world to know what’s going on in Ferguson and we need justice, we need answers and we need action. And we have to bring it to the U.N. so they can expose it to the rest of the world, what’s going on in small town Ferguson.”
Due to differing accounts of events, there has been speculation around what truly occurred between Michael Brown and the white police officer that led to the teens shooting and death.
Though testimony given by Browns parents to the U.N. was done behind closed doors, it was stated that the couple would read from a statement that was submitted by the Brown family and an organization called HandsUpUnited. The author writes:
“The document says Brown’s killing and force used by police officers during protests that followed the killing ‘represent violations of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.’
It requests that the U.N. panel recommend the immediate arrest of Officer Darren Wilson, who killed Brown, as well as an end to ‘racial profiling and racially-biased police harassment across the jurisdictions surrounding Ferguson.’
The statement also calls for recommendations that would apply to the entire United States, including that the Attorney General and Department of Justice ‘must conduct a nationwide investigation of systematic police brutality and harassment in black and brown communities, and youth in particular. Methodology and findings of this investigation must be made publicly available.'”
Read more at CNN.com.
This post was written by Reginald Calhoun, editorial assistant for The Burton Wire. He is a junior Mass Media Arts major at Clark Atlanta University. Follow him on Twitter @IRMarsean.
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