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In the 1950’s, African-American men were brutalized for talking to or looking at white women. Fast forward to 2017 and it is unbelievable that this is still happening.
Two African American teenage boys were beaten by a group of white boys after they were seen speaking to a 15-year-old white girl. The two victims, 15-year-old Sam Scott and his cousin 17-year-old Shannon Dumas, were hanging out on Christmas Eve at a levee in Louisiana and when they began talking to a white teenage girl, her boyfriend allegedly became enraged.
“A white girl started talking to one of my black friends and they were running it with each other and she had a boyfriend and her boyfriend got mad,” Dumas explained to WAFB. ” I asked him if he wanted to fight and he said, ‘Yeah,’ so he was like yeah, so I took my jacket off and when I took my jacket off, somebody hit me with a bottle and I fell and they hit me again and I fell again and they started jumping me.”
Police have arrested 21-year-old James Hitt and charged him with aggravated second degree battery.
Even though one arrest has been made, the mothers of the two teens feel like the authorities are not putting a lot of effort into solving this case.
“It feels like it’s about to be a pushover and we’re not going to let that go like that,” Lahoma Dumas told WAFB.
“I feel like if they would have done that to them, they would have been in jail the same night,” one of the mother said.
Sid Berthelot, deputy chief with the St. James Parish Sheriff’s Office, disagrees.
“I want to get people in jail for it,” he said. “Totally uncalled for, what happened. It’s a shame. We’re going to bring the people who did this to justice.”
Police are urging anyone who has information that could lead them to arresting the other men who were involved to contact the sheriff’s office at 225-562-2200.
