Monday, April 23, 2012
Brothers on neighborhood watch accused of beating black teenage boy
case in Baltimore. Some are calling it a case of racial profiling.
On Monday two Baltimore brothers are set to go on trial, accused of beating a black teenager during a neighborhood watch patrol.
The brothers, Eliyahu and Avi Werdesheim were part of a community patrol organization in northwest Baltimore.
The incident happened in November 2010 when the brothers were patrolling an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
The brothers are Jewish. They claimed self defense in this case.
The brothers say the teen was holding a nail studded board and they felt
threatened. The teen victim says he was walking in the 33,000 block of
Fallstaff Road at 12:45pm when a car pulled up and two males began
driving next to him.
He told police that the men followed him for a short distance before jumping out of the car and surrounding him.
They grabbed him and threw him to the ground and hit him in the head and told him you don't belong here.
The brothers attorneys say there were a number of crimes in the area and thought the teen was a suspect.
Local civil rights leaders are hoping the Trayvon Martin case in Florida
will draw attention to what they believe is racial profiling when it
comes to neighborhood watch programs.
The trial is set to begin Monday morning.
