Rickia Young, 27.10.2020. Assaulted and separated from child – Philadelphia (PA)

Rickia Young, a Black mother, was attacked by a horde of Philadelphia police officers while she was driving an SUV with her 2-year-old son and teenage nephew on October 27 as the city was engulfed in protest over the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr. earlier that day.

Officers descended on the vehicle, broke its windows, assaulted and arrested her and separated her from her child. Rickia’s arrest went viral due to a shocking video of the police swarming her vehicle, and after the National Fraternal Order of Police — the country’s largest police union — posted a photo of her 2-year-old on social media, falsely claiming he “was lost during the violent riots in Philadelphia, wandering around barefoot in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness.”

More than a month after the police attack, Rickia Young is demanding the officers involved be fired. “The police have not offered an explanation as to why they acted the way they did that night. They responded instead with a police investigation into Rickia,” says Kevin Mincey, her attorney.

“Once I got close enough to see the cops, I stopped. Like, I stopped right there. I was trying to turn around. But it was like people came inside the street and was up there throwing stuff at the cops.

Next you know, the cops started charging, started running. My nephew was saying, “Lock the doors! Lock the doors!” because they was banging on the car, saying mean things: “Turn this F-ing car around!” and “Get out the F-ing car!” And they had yanked my door open. But by that time, they had busted the back window. They pulled me out the car, and they busted the other window.

I was up there yelling at them, like, “My son is in the car! My son is in the car!” And once they busted that window, they had woke him up. And they was up there, like, doing whatever they was doing to me, hitting me, throwing me, macing me. My son, the look on his face, he was petrified. Petrified.

I was asking, like, “What’s going on?” like, you know, “Where’s my son? Where’s my son?” like screaming, like trying to find my son. The officer had the nerve to tell me, “He’s in a better place: DHS.” You can say anything you want about me, but calling me — like, saying something like that to me is an insult. They, as a whole, the Philadelphia Police Department, treated me as if I was an animal on the street. An animal don’t even deserve that.

He is petrified. And he’s only 2 years old. My mom and my nephew asked him what happened. He was saying, ‘[bleep] car. [bleep] door. Open door,’ and up there banging his hand, like as if — like, you know, the cops was banging on the car. He just kept repeating it like he’s still trying to tell the story. Like, he acts out. He bite his nails. He pull his hair now. He never did those things before. He’s traumatized. He is going through something. He knows words, but, you know, he can’t express to me how he’s feeling.”

According to her lawyer, “They held her vehicle — first, after losing her vehicle, not knowing where it was for several days, according to what they told us. And when they finally recovered it three or four days later, none of her belongings were inside. The hearing aids were gone. Her purse, her wallet were gone. And the car had even more damage than when she last saw it after they had smashed out all the windows.” […]  There has been no — there has been no explanation. The only thing that they’ve even tried to do is kind of workshop a story where they were going to accuse her of trying to assault a police officer. That was done after they had taken her into custody. When Rickia was in the hospital and being held at police headquarters, on her wristband it referenced assault on police.

But you can see from the videos that were taken that night that Rickia’s car never moved that night. When she came down Chestnut Street and started to turn and turn around, she stopped right there. She didn’t back up, because there were people behind her. There were people running towards her. She didn’t do anything to try and assault an officer. And that’s ultimately, I think, why they ultimately chose not to charge her criminally, because they had no evidence to support such a charge.”

Fortunately for Rickia, there were two young women who were in the paddy wagon with her that night, and one of the women still had her cellphone on her, incredibly. And so, Rickia was able to get the young lady to call her sister, and Rickia was able to tell her sister and her mother then what happened out there on 52^nd Street that night. And then her mother and her sister went out to 52^nd Street to question the police.

At first, the police acted as though they didn’t know what they were talking about. And eventually they directed Rickia’s mother and sister to 15^th Street, which is about four miles away from where all this happened — and 15^th and JFK, to be exact, which is near where the Department of Human Services is here in Philadelphia.

And when they went down to 15^th and JFK, Rickia’s mother found her son sitting in the backseat of a police car still in his car seat. And when she touched his hair, glass fell out of his hair. There was still glass from the car in the car seat. The police were just allowing him to sit in that glass.

Rickia’s son had a large welt on his head. She had internal injuries. Her nephew had broken bones in his hand. So, it’s a slow recovery from the physical injuries and an even slower recovery from the emotional trauma that they’re going to be dealing with probably for the rest of their lives.