William McNeil Jr.’s case has taken on nationwide curiosity because the viral video of his violent arrest has now been seen hundreds of thousands of occasions throughout nearly each single social media platform and cable information. Commentary in regards to the incident has been steady, however up to now, we haven’t heard from McNeil about how he’s feeling and what his ideas are a number of days faraway from his harrowing expertise.
Nonetheless, ABC Information Dwell Prime landed an unique interview with the 22-year-old Jacksonville, Florida, resident who’s clearly nonetheless reeling from the wanton assault.
“I don’t drive anymore,” he mentioned. “Simply because I don’t belief cops, anymore. I’m nonetheless scared. I can’t get sleep at evening due to trauma. I’ve flashbacks and nightmares.”
McNeil has retained the authorized providers of lawyer Harry Daniels along with these of ubiquitous civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, each of whom stood subsequent to McNeil as he addressed a crowd of supporters throughout a press convention following the tv interview.
Crump additionally addressed the group with calls for for justice and the rapid termination of all officers concerned within the pointless assault towards McNeil saying:
“When you don’t terminate this officer and also you condone any such police extreme drive, then it sends a message to all the different cops on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Workplace crew. It tells them, it’s OK so that you can deal with residents like this, it’s okay to deal with Black motorists like this,” Crump mentioned. “In America, it isn’t OK.”
William McNeil Jr. has a vivid future forward of him as he’s at the moment a scholar and a member of the marching band at Livingstone Faculty in Salisbury, North Carolina. His dad and mom, mom Latoya Solomon and stepfather Alton Solomon, have been each deeply traumatized by what these “blue lives” did to their Black son. Latoya Solomon gave reward to God for safeguarding her son towards loss of life saying, “I’m grateful to God for safeguarding him, as a result of I do know what the end result may have been.” Alton Solomon was distraught as he thought again to the time when he was William’s age, “To see that video made me return to the second after I was 22. It harm,” he mentioned.
We absolutely count on authorized motion towards the town of Jacksonville, JSO, and Sheriff TK Waters, who has gone on the file to defend the blue boys over this younger Black man. We hope all of them pay dearly for his or her transgressions.