Investigation underway after teens claim Minneapolis security officers assaulted them
MINNEAPOLIS MN May 16 2019
A Minneapolis high school senior and his friend say they were assaulted and pepper sprayed by two security guards Friday while waiting at a bus stop.
One of the students captured the incident on her cell phone, and an investigation is now underway.
It happened near the bus stop at 7th and Hennepin downtown, just a block from Target Center. The young man and his friend were waiting for public transportation when they say they were grabbed by two private security guards.
Cell phone video shows 18-year-old Toyvon Campbell tossed to the ground by two Allied Universal Security officers as his friend attempts to intervene while recording the incident.
“They pepper-sprayed me on my right side of my face and swung me to the ground…trying to put his knee on the side of my face on the ground. He did this while I was still trying to move my head so I could breathe…he pepper sprayed me on the other side of my face,” he said.
Campbell said he and his longtime friend, Shantazjha Pope, were waiting at the bus stop to go home. He was making sure she got on the bus before he ordered an Uber.
They say another group of people nearby appeared to be smoking marijuana and causing problems before walking off. That’s when the two guards approached them.
“They grabbed my arm and said, ‘We are going to escort you off the property,’” Campbell said.
Campbell said he didn’t have a chance to explain that he and his friend were not smoking marijuana before he was assaulted and taken into a corner parking ramp.
“They were putting him on the ground and hurting him for no reason when we had done nothing to nobody,” Pope said.
The two friends and their mothers want these men to be held responsible for their actions.
“I want them to be fired,” Campbell said. “I want them to not be able to do that to any other black man, to any other black brother—but not even that, to know that they were wrong.”
Minneapolis police confirm a report was filed by the students and their parents. Campbell sought medical treatment Monday, citing lingering head and neck pain.
Full statement from Allied Universal Security:
“We recently just learned of an incident at Mayo Sports Complex where a young male and female were allegedly smoking marijuana on private property and resisted when our unarmed security professionals tried to escort them off of the property. At Allied Universal, we take this matter extremely seriously and expect all our employees to uphold our standards of professionalism. As this investigation is ongoing, we are unable to provide more details at this time.”
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