Gastonia police logged nearly 700 incidents of use of force over a decadelong period. Just eight of those incidents — all of which involved white suspects — were labeled as “not justified.”
Micheal Littlejohn, an attorney for the mother of a 21-year-old Black man killed by Gastonia police officers in 2022, uncovered this data through public records requests.
In July, Littlejohn filed a lawsuit on her behalf against the city of Gastonia and the officers who fatally shot her son, alleging that their use of deadly force was unlawful. He also filed the lawsuit under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, alleging that police officers discriminated against the man because of his race.
Littlejohn stressed that there were roughly the same number of use of force complaints involving Black and white suspects, yet none of the incidents involving Black suspects were found to be “not justified.” Black people make up about 31% of the city’s population…