The Omaha Police Officers Association recently published a disturbing video of a black toddler cursing on camera and titled it “The Thug Cycle.”
The video captures a young black boy in diapers using profanities, racial slurs and sexual comments as several adults can be heard in the background encouraging the young boy to say such obscenities.
At one point, the adults are heard laughing off-camera and telling the child, “You a h** n****” in which the toddler responds, “You a h** b****.” During another moment, the child is seen holding his middle finger to the camera.
According to the police union’s site, they discovered the video on a “local thug’s public Facebook page.”
“We here at OmahaPOA.com viewed the video and we knew that despite the fact that it is sickening, heartbreaking footage, we have an obligation to share it to continue to educate the law abiding public about the terrible cycle of violence and thuggery that some young innocent children find themselves helplessly trapped in,” the post reads.
They continue to write: “Now while we didn’t see anything in this video that is blatantly “illegal”, we sure did see a lot that is flat out immoral and completely unhealthy for this little child from a healthy upbringing standpoint.”
The police union is now under fire for publishing the post. They have received harsh criticism from some in the community who believe that singling out the child was inappropriate and that their generalization of “the cycle of violence and thuggery” in the black community is unfair.
The executive director of Black Men United in Omaha, Willie Hamilton, says he does not tolerate the behavior expressed in the video but that he disagrees with the union’s post, arguing that it adds further tension among the police force and the black community.
“The police actually have a website that is perpetuating mistrust and anger, and I think that is what it is meant to do,” Hamilton told the Omaha World-Herald. “I thought posting the video was crossing the line. To use that incident to say that our kids are going to grow up and be thugs is far-reaching and insensitive. We are talking about a child that hasn’t even gone to school yet.”
“If the police chief is trying to amend the broken relationship with our community, he needs to say, ‘On my watch, I will not allow this kind of behavior,’” Hamilton went on to say. “Maybe we should look at how much control the police union has. They shouldn’t be able to use the website as a shield to post these nasty things.”
According to the paper, the police union forwarded the video to Omaha Police Department’s Youth Services Division to review the case.
To view the video click here. (Warning: It contains expletive language.)
Follow Lilly Workneh on Twitter @Lilly_Works