Michigan, United States
The diffusion of a video showing a teenager negro losing consciousness after being suffocated by officials of a criminal center generated dismay in America.
Cornelius Fredericks, 16, died on May 1 two days after educators at the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo, MichiganThey pushed and smashed him to the ground for throwing a sandwich at another boy in the local cafeteria.
The video from the surveillance camera shows Fredericks throwing the sandwich from his table and then several men pounce on him, knock him down and lean on his body to control him. About 10 minutes later, the young man appears unconscious and the staff tries to revive him with cardiac massage maneuvers before calling for medical help.
His death is reminiscent of George Floyd, an African-American man killed on May 25 by a white police officer who suffocated him on a Minneapolis street during his arrest. His agony was filmed, went viral on social networks and unleashed anger in the United States against racism and police brutality.
This “horrible video” of Fredericks it reveals a “culture of fear and abuse” at that criminal center where the “regular” practice of suffocation “is a form of punishment,” said Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney for the victim’s family.
The young man “was executed on April 29 for the crime of throwing a sandwich,” he reported. The seven officials who restrained him “deprived him of oxygen and his brain suffered irreversible injuries,” he said.
Two educators and a nurse were charged with involuntary manslaughter and battery.
The lawyer filed civil lawsuits in June against the personnel involved and against the private firm hired by the state of Michigan to manage the center.
“Even if Cornelius Fredericks yelling ‘I can’t breathe’, officials continued to hold him inappropriately, killing him, “the lawyer said in his complaint.
The lawyer said Tuesday that the firm that manages the center proposed a friendly agreement of at least one million dollars as compensation for the victim’s family.
In June, the Michigan governor had denounced the boy’s “senseless” and “intolerable” death and announced the end of the contract with private society.
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