A 21-year-old black man claims he was the victim of racial profiling in a well-documented incident, footage of which shows a white police officer in unincorporated North Harris County questioning the man and then arrested him — but not before a K9 attacked and the man was tasered.
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RELATED: Watch as a black Houston teen is harassed by police for mowing lawns in an affluent neighborhood
Now, Marlin Gipson is working with a prominent Philadelphia-based attorney, and his family is speaking out about the incident.
His attorney, Lee Merritt, posted about the altercation on Facebook:
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In the four-minute edited video showing the incident, Gipson was first questioned by the cop, as Gipson went door-to-door advertising his lawn-care business.
Gipson did not respond to questioning, instead walking away from police.
The video then cuts to Gipson inside a home where he is again questioned by cops; when he did not comply to the authorities’ satisfactions, the young man was attacked by a dog on the K9 unit and was tasered.
Meanwhile, Precinct 1 constable Alan Rosen maintains a different side of the story.
As he said in an interview with Chron.com:
“I do a tremendous amount of training with my officers and with the community. Whenever I see anything like this, or an allegation of somebody from my office targeting someone because of their race, I’m going to look very deeply into that case. I feel as though the officer acted with great restraint and tried to get Mr. Gipson to comply with him and he would not comply. There is another side to these stories. As far as I can tell, our officers did nothing wrong and followed procedure. I am sensitive to the relationship with law enforcement and community.”
This is a developing story.