Two of the four teenagers arrested for selling bottles of water on the National Mall got a big raise when a Washington, D.C., area businessman offered them jobs, reports ABC7.
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Four teenagers were handcuffed by plainclothes U.S. Park Police officers last week for selling bottles of ice water on the National Mall without a permit. One of them is pictured on the ground. The Park Police say the four were given verbal warnings and released.
Tweeted photos of the incident lit up the internet, as people protested what they saw as excessive treatment of the four.
https://twitter.com/timkrepp/status/877999901384355840
The tweet even got the attention of D.C. Councilman Charles Allen, who wrote a letter to the U.S. Park Police decrying their treatment of the youths.
I sent the following letter to Park Police Chief MacLean regarding yesterday's handcuffing of kids selling water on the Mall. pic.twitter.com/bzY4I77E91
— Charles Allen (@charlesallen) June 23, 2017
Raymond Bell, director of the H.O.P.E. project, saw the tweet and started calling around.
“I love seeing young people having an interest in working for themselves,” he said. “We’ll be bringing them on board as iPhone screen replacement technicians here at H.O.P.E. project.”
Nolan White and Devin Gatewood have been hired already; Bell says he’s working on jobs for the other two as well.
The H.O.P.E. project has been in existence since 2009 — the acronym stands for “Helping Other People Excel.” It is an information technology training and development program for young people.