Teens arrested in NY for 'waiting while black' at bus stop

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Three African-American teenagers arrested and charged with disorderly conduct last week believe they were unfairly targeted by police.

The basketball players said they were waiting for a bus in Rochester, NY, to take them to a scrimmage when police asked them to leave the area. When 17-year-old Deaquon Carelock and 16-year-olds Raliek Redd and Wan’Tauhjs Weathers pushed back against the officer’s request, saying they were following instructions from their coach, police arrested them.

“You’re just downtown minding your own business and the next thing you know, anything can happen,” Carelock said in video captured by NBC station WHEC.

“We tried to tell them that we were waiting for the bus,” Weathers added. “We weren’t catching a city bus, we were catching a yellow bus. He didn’t care. He arrested us anyways.”

Police say the teens were obstructing pedestrian traffic and repeatedly ignored orders to disperse, according to a police report obtained by FOX station WROC. Police had been keeping an eye on the area after receiving complaints of loitering from a nearby store. The students’ coach said he had no reason to think they were causing trouble.

“My guys were waiting for the bus like they normally do,” Jacob Scott, the student’s basketball coach, said. “I get to the scene after parking my car and three of my guys are handcuffed.”

At that point Scott says he tried to explain to the officer that the students were simply following his instructions to wait for the ride to their scrimmage, prompting the officer to tell him he too might be arrested if he didn’t leave the area.

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