What happened next that evening in May 2021 is the basis for a lawsuit by the mother alleging that Burlington police used excessive force and discriminated against her unarmed son, who is Black and has behavioral and intellectual disabilities.
After he failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes, two officers physically forced him to do so, then Cathy Austrian’s son was handcuffed and pinned to the ground as he screamed and struggled, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday and police body-camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
The teen eventually was injected with a ketamine, a sedative, then taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.
She mistakenly thought that calling the cops to talk to her child about not stealing would help him understand why it’s wrong and what the stakes are. She’s an old white woman. She didn’t realize that cops wouldn’t treat her large, black child as subhuman.
She was stupid and ignorant, but the cops are the monsters here. Don’t get it twisted with your own relationships with your parents. This isn’t that.
Insanely weird to project your parental issues on a lady calling the cops on her adopted black child, but being old is not an excuse for not being aware of the century long issue of cops treating black people poorly.