New Jersey attorney general is investigating claims that police officers repeatedly punched an Arab teen without provocation
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office is investigating after video footage shows multiple police officers assaulting a Muslim Arab American teenager.
Osamah Alsaidi, 19 at the time, was assaulted and arrested by police officers with the Paterson Police Department in New Jersey in December, his lawyer Diego Navas said in a pre-lawsuit notice of claim.
Alsaidi was walking down Madison Avenue in Paterson just after midnight December 14 when a vehicle approached him, according to video footage released by the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Ed Forchion, the perennial candidate and cannabis provocateur better known as the NJ Weedman, said that a police officer s personal bias against legalized marijuana led to his arrest on charges of marijuana possession in Wanaque early Saturday morning.
Forchion, 56, and passenger Dawn Perry, 29, of Freehold, were arrested around 12:25 a.m. on various drug offenses and traffic violations, according to Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes.
The longtime advocate for the legalization of marijuana told New Jersey 101.5 he was found with a couple grams of marijuana, two vape pens and $9,000 in cash, which he said was seized by the arresting officer. The news release from Valdes did not mention the money and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Andrew C. Palestini would not disclose information about the cash citing the ongoing investigation.