Vol. 79/No. 12      April 6, 2015

Johnson, 20, who hails from south Chicago, was refused entry into the Trinity Irish Pub during St. Patrick’s Day festivities for a discrepancy between the zip code on his ID and the one he gave the bouncer. ABC cops then threw him to the ground, slamming his head on the pavement, and held him down as Johnson repeatedly told them he was a student at the university and called them racists. Johnson suffered head and face cuts requiring 10 stitches. The cops arrested him for obstruction of justice and public intoxication.

Johnson is a member of the university’s Honor Committee and leadership development chairman of the Black Student Alliance.

“This is not something that ever should have happened,” University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan told the media as she joined the protest.

Sullivan told the Washington Post that she had asked the ABC cops to probe area bars believed to be selling alcohol to minors, but the agents had targeted students instead.

The bouncer, Kevin Badke, one of the bar’s owners, said Johnson was “polite and cordial,” though disappointed, when he was refused entry to the bar.

Badke said he didn’t believe Johnson was drunk, and a Breathalyzer test later confirmed he was not intoxicated.

The day after the protest, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called for an investigation of the beating.

About 100 angry Black students walked out of a meeting with local police chiefs and the state secretary of public safety and homeland security March 20.

Students chanted, “No justice, no peace! No racist police!” as they marched to the African-American Affairs Office across the campus. Johnson participated in the action.

“These incidents are not isolated,” Aryn Frazier from the Black Student Alliance told the Post. “Not in Charlottesville, not in New York and not across the nation.”
 
 
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