The Uhuru Movement announced in a press conference held at the Uhuru House on Thursday November 10th that they will be taking legal action against the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department for their brutal murder of three teenaged black girls, Dominique Battle, Ashaunti Butler and La’Niyah Miller.
The sheriff’s deputies violated their own policies and pursued the three young girls in a car chase, before hitting the bumper of the car they were driving, and pushing them into a cemetery pond where they drowned to death.
The deputies originally lied in their reports by stating that they removed their belts and jumped into the pond to attempt to save the girls. This was however proven to be false when dash cam video revealed that they stood by the pond and engaged in casual conversation as they listened to the screaming girls drown to their deaths.
Aaron O’Neal, the attorney of Dominique’s mother Kundé Mwamvita and member of the Uhuru Movement, outlined the murderous tendency and history of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department who has a history of “engaging in discriminatory policing against the black community in this county.”
Aaron outlined the past cases of Laboriel Fenton and Alton Richard to “highlight the murderous practices of Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. This includes excessive and deadly use of force, as well as illegal stops, police chases, searches and arrests that violate the black community’s fourth amendment rights”
Kundé’s attorney outlined the discriminatory treatment the black community of Pinellas county. From poverty, to police arrests to education. In all these discriminatory cases, however, the key role of the Sheriff’s Office has always been overlooked. Aaron made it a point to outline the complicit role that the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office plays in his press notice.
Aaron O’Neal stated that the case of Dominique, La’Niyah and Ashaunti highlights what the Sheriff’s Office has been doing to black youth for years now. “We will expose the lies of the Sheriff’s Office and tell the real story. We believe that these girls were murdered, flat out. Sheriff Bob Gultieri criminalized and slandered these girls because he knew that the deputies were guilty of murder of these children.”
The Uhuru Movement is waging an international campaign, “Justice for the 3 Drowned Girls” to demand that each involved deputy be brought up on charges, to demand black community control of the police and reparations to the families of La’Niyah, Ashaunti and Dominique.
Uhuru!
Support or Join the Justice for 3 Drowned girls committee! Email justice3dbg@inpdum.org or call 727-914-3618
