By Cathy Krebs, The Imprint, August 12, 2020
“I can’t breathe.”
These words are now painfully familiar. They were the last words of George Floyd who died on May 25, when a police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as well as Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was killed in 2014 after being put in a chokehold by New York City police. They were also the final words of a boy who died 24 days before Floyd, not at the hands of law enforcement, but at the hands of a child welfare provider.
Cornelius Frederick was a 16-year old Black youth who was in state custody through the foster care system in Michigan. Rather than placing Cornelius in a family foster home, he was placed in a group care facility, a fate that disproportionately falls on Black children in this system.
On April 29, Cornelius made the fatal error of throwing a sandwich. The response by a group home employee was to restrain him by sitting on him for 12 minutes.
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