For the second time in two days, police in Pennsylvania arrested a family for loitering in front of their own house.
The first time took place on October 1 when Chester Township police arrested a group of young men playing with their nephews in their front yard.
The second time took place on October 2 when the young men who had been arrested were returning home after spending the night in jail and were being greeted by family members in front of their home.
In trying to justify the arrests, Chester Township police said the family cursed at them the second time around and one man kicked a window of a cop car, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by Fox 29.
Cellphone video from the scene shows cops pulling one man, Ramir Briggs, off his family’s porch and throwing him to the ground.
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Rachel Briggs who lives at the home told KYW News Radio it was a traumatizing experience
“It’s a terrifying thing. It makes me feel as though the police can knock down your door, and drag you out of your home at anytime. This is an incident that made me feel like I’m a prisoner in my own home,” Briggs said.
She said everything started they day before, on Oct. 1, when Officer Pasquale Storace III arrested her sons and nephew for loitering while they were playing in her front yard.
“The gentleman were taken to jail, they had high bails placed on them. The families scrambled to get their money together, they were able to get them out the next day,” she explained.
When the young men, who are black, were released from jail, they were greeted by family members on that same lawn where they were arrested. Kevin Mincey, the family’s lawyer, said that’s when officer Storace, who is white, showed up and decided to re-arrest them as well as several other members of their family.
The Briggs family said there are no “no loitering” signs posted in their neighborhood so they naturally assumed they would be allowed to congregate in their front yard. They have hired an attorney and plan to sue the Chester Township Police Department.
