A short video that went viral on social media on Monday indicates that the relationship between police officers and some inner-city black youth has hit a new low.
The video shows a handful of very young black children — one child still in diapers and one barely out of them — becoming violent with police officers, hitting them and shouting expletives at them.
“Shut up, b***h,” a child and the main aggressor in the situation seems to say to one cop as the video opens.
The child also tells another cop to “shut the f*** up” and insults the cop’s “ugly a**” shoes.
Both cops in the video appear to be black, and their uniforms indicate that they are members of the ATF. They try to diffuse the situation and shield themselves from the blows, but otherwise do not engage with the children. The officers were reportedly on the scene to issue a search warrant in a homicide investigation.
At one point, the child winds up and smacks one police officer. The slap is so forceful that it can be audibly heard on the video. However, because the boy is so young, his comments can sometimes be difficult to decipher.
Meanwhile, the voice of an older child or young man can be heard coming from off camera, talking about a cop’s “deep fried Oreo head,” possibly in reference to the black men working in law enforcement.
According to journalist Andy Ngo, the video was filmed in “a hood in St. Paul, MN.” St. Paul is the “twin city” to Minneapolis, where George Floyd died during an incident with police in May 2020.
Users on social media have quickly denounced the video as evidence of poor parenting. Blogger Samuel Sey tweeted, “This is tough to watch. That boy has already been set on a destructive path. His parents have failed him.”
Sheila Quells of Alpha News argued on Sunday that the video points to a larger problem within the black community: high rates of illegitimacy.
“While the left constantly bemoans systemic racism, the evidence suggests something different,” Quells said. “It does not point to racism. It does not point to white privilege. And it certainly does not point to police brutality. It points to the problem in the black community that no one ever talks about: the high percentage of fatherless homes.”
Because fathers often establish boundaries and enforce discipline within the nuclear family, fatherless homes lead to behaviors like those seen in the video, she said.
If civic and church leaders don’t encourage more marriages and more intact families within the black community, Quells believes that children like those seen in the video will be consigned to a lives of crime and, likely, early deaths.
She also commented that while the viral video is only 30 seconds in length, the original video in the custody of Alpha News actually extends for another two minutes. She gave no reason for abridging the video.