Back in July, officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin entered into an Applebee’s and approached Jermelle English Jr., a Black man who they mistakenly thought was the suspect from a hit-and-run accident. In a video that has since gone viral, English Jr. could be seen on the ground with his 1-year-old baby before authorities pinned him and began hitting him repeatedly. He and the woman he was with, Shanya Boyd, were then taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting police. Boyd also received an additional charge for marijuana possession. The perpetrators that the cops were actually looking for were later found hiding in the Applebee’s restroom.
Yesterday (Aug. 30), TMZ reported that JAY-Z’s Team Roc, Roc Nation’s philanthropic and social justice division, stepped in to assist English Jr. and his family by hiring decorated lawyer Alex Spiro to take on the case. The outlet also stated that the intent will be to get all of the aforementioned charges dropped and potentially file a lawsuit against Kenosha’s law enforcement.
Jennifer Harris, the manager who was on duty at the time, gave CBS 58 her account of the chaotic incident. “It was a lot, I was worried for the baby first off, the baby and the gentleman, that was my first concern,” she said, also noting that pepper spray was deployed in the midst of the fracas. “One employee was trying to get the cops to stop punching him, he was like, ‘Hey, hey, stop, he’s on the ground, stop,’ and they pushed him, pushed my employee, and said, ‘One more word out of you and you’re arrested.'”
Harris also revealed that she’d since been fired by the restaurant chain after footage of what took place reached social media. “They told me they can’t trust me and that I didn’t just ruin this Applebee’s name, I ruined all the Applebee’s in Wisconsin’s name by letting these videos get out,” she stated. “I’m not the one who recorded the videos nor let them out on the internet, so I don’t understand. My employees are trying to get the right story out, so how did we ruin the name of Applebee’s?”