There seems to be no end in sight for the police brutality and racial discrimination against people of color in the United States as new footage emerged in the US state of Georgia where a helpless father of five unarmed African American children desperately pleads with police officers not to shoot his kids. Rasa - Local media cited Dominique Goodman — the father of the five children involved in the incident — as saying that his kids were shot at by police on Saturday morning during a traffic stop in their neighborhood in Waycross, Georgia, for what police claimed to be a response to their reckless driving at an intersection.
Reports said police had opened fire on the five children aged between 9 and 16 in the car for allegedly jumping the light, which prompted the 16-year-old behind the wheel to abruptly pull over the car and run in scare with four other kids.
Bullet holes were vividly visible on the body of the car that carried the five children.
Goodman is seen in the footage imploring police not to shoot his 15- and 16-year-old sons upon their arrest at the scene, after he said multiple shots had been fired at his three youngest children.
“Those are my kids, man. Man, that’s my child, man,” said Goodman in cell phone video of the incident. “Those are children, man. They’re minors, man.”
Providing further details on what happened prior to the shooting, Amari Goodman, 12, said they noticed a police car following them without the lights on and only when they got to their neighborhood, the officers turned their lights on and started shooting.
“They shot at a car full of unarmed minors, a car full of unarmed children. Like, who in the world can’t see that this is a 9-year-old? Who can’t see that this is a child? They look like children,” Goodman said. “They are babies. What was the purpose of shooting?”
The two officers involved have been placed on administrative leave as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is conducting an independent probe into the incident.
The shooting incident in Georgia comes hot on the heels of a fresh public movement against US police violence and racial discrimination against African Americans following the brutal murder of George Floyd — an unarmed black man — in police custody in May.
The 46-year-old died after a white officer knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25.
His death unleashed protests against police brutality and for racial justice in the US and many world countries.
Protesters clamored for an end to police brutality, saying they were hopeful that Floyd's death would mark a turning point in race relations, police aggression and a lightning rod for change in the way police departments function across the US.