Protester of police brutality says change needed or fires will continue to spread

Editor:

I am an Albion NY, born at Arnold Gregory Memorial Hospital many years ago. I live in Syracuse now, and I was among the protesters last night.

These protests are the culmination of decades of police abusing their power on every level imaginable. I am forever grateful that none of the Albion village cops never kneeled on my neck for 9 minutes, but I do have first-hand experience with police brutality.

I woke up in the hospital more than once after being arrested, beat up to the point of needing an ICU bed.

The callous murder of George Floyd is, to put it in the simplest terms, the last straw.  The system we are to rely on to bring justice is, point blank, broken.

I am compelled to point out one last personal experience which proves the system is broken far beyond the police.

My ex wife, Renee, was under investigation by the Orleans County Department of Children and Family Services. She was indicated in an investigation due to her severe abuse of alcohol. She died from alcoholic hepatitis less than a few months later.

If the report was indicated, and she was under investigation, how could she continue to drink to the point of acute liver and kidney failure with absolutely no sign of any caseworker ever doing anything further than the initial investigation? When I approached the agency they gave me no apology and no investigation.

I do not condone violence in any way, but in the interest of explanation, I feel it is incidents like the one I just described, combined with police brutality, combined with a bias corrupt unjust system, for literally decades, results in the situation we find ourselves.

And, I feel, the fires will continue and spread until true change is brought about.

Charlie Hunt

Syracuse