That's How You Feel? Sacramento Officers Called Group of Black Boys a “Pack of Animals”
The public is only now learning about a 2020 incident in which two Sacramento cops were eventually disciplined for using racist language while they improperly detained a group of Black boys while on duty.
Officers Connor Lawrence and Brandon Lundgreen were given “disciplinary letters” in October 2021 by the Sacramento Police Department for a 2020 incident in which they were recorded telling the boys, among other things, that they “are the problem with our country,” and calling them “ghetto” and “retarded”, the Sacramento Bee reports. Although the altercation took place three years ago and the disciplinary action two years ago, the city’s police department only disclosed the incident on its web site this month.
Lawrence and Lundgreen responded to an area near a movie theater in the Delta Shores shopping center one evening in October 2020. The 2021 disciplinary report says the caller complained about a group of kids loitering and bothering patrons. When the two arrived, body camera audio picked up their conversation inside the car including comments about whether the kids were “drinking Lean” and insults that they were “so ghetto” and “retarded.”
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“Should I just go out there and grab somebody and f———, ka-ka-ka,” Lawrence said, which the report confirmed meant shooting or using force. The two officers then discussed ways to detain the group by yanking them and throwing them in the patrol car.
When they finally stepped out of the vehicle, they ordered the group to leave but the kids refused. Lundgreen went to handcuff one 14-year-old and addressed him as the “first victim.” Following that, he went on a full blown, unprovoked rant.
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“There is two hundred of you roaming around, being a pack of animals,” Lundgren can be heard saying on a body camera, according to the disciplinary letter. “It’s like a pack of wolves out there destroying the community ... you are not going to get away... I could tase you, I could bola wrap you, I could shoot you with a bean bag round. I could deploy a dog on you. I mean is this really how you are going to grow up and live your life, just f—- the police? ... Live a great life and show some respect. Because right now, you are the problem with our society. You are the problem with our country.”
The disgusting verbiage used to slander these teens sounds a lot like how the news media described the Central Park Five in the late 80s. They were described as animals, savages and a sort of “wolf pack” that came from drugs and were looking to “to smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape,” as The New York Post’s Pete Hamill put it.
But despite being reprimanded and forced to complete a three-day training involving “resilience, compassion and leadership” for law enforcement as well as additional outreach engagement, Lawrence and Lundgreen still patrol Sacramento with badges and guns.
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