Reverend W. J. Rideout III, who led the protest outside the Manoogian Mansion in Detroit Monday night, says the investigation into the late August incident is taking too long. Damon Grimes crashed and died after he was tasered by a Michigan State Police trooper while he was behind the wheel of an ATV.
“Should we have a guy tasing a young 15-year-old kid who didn’t have a weapon, who didn’t do anything, was just riding an ATV and killed him,” Rideout said. “So he should be charged, he shouldn’t be on leave with pay, he should be on leave without pay.”
Troopers attempted to stop the 15-year-old driver of an ATV 4-wheeler for reckless driving. They turned on their emergency lights and siren, but Grimes refused to stop, police said, leading troopers in a pursuit eastbound on Rossini.
At some point during the chase, Trooper Mark Bessner thought it would be a good idea to tase the driver of the moving ATV, so he deployed a taser, striking the teen.
At Gratiot Avenue, Grimes lost control of the ATV, driving off the roadway onto the sidewalk before crashing into the back of a pickup truck. Grimes was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Bessner has been on paid leave since the incident, but now Rideout wants Mayor Mike Duggan to pressure Prosecutor Kym Worthy into pressing charges.
“We want him to address Kym Worthy now,” Rideout said about tonight’s protest outside the Manoogian Mansion, which is the home of the Detroit Mayor. “We want him to address her and we want him to address them moving this case forward and bringing charges to the officer, standing with the family, this community because we don’t want this to ever happen again.”
Source: http://countercurrentnews.info