Read Online Get What You Give by Stephanie Perry Moore - Free Book Online

security guards from inside the store, and they held G-Dogg down. He went ballistic, telling Teddi and me that we were gonna be sorry. I wanted to yell out, “Kick him, punch him, beat him!” but I knew that was wrong. The only thing I could do was console my girl.
    Evan was calling out for the one who had battered and bruised her. G-Dogg was screaming for the security guards to release him. Inwardly, I was yelling for justice to be done.
    So I said to Evan, “Look, you can’t think this G-Dogg is good for you, girl! You need to be concerned with yourself. A man should never hit a woman. Take a stand. Don’t allow him to ruin your life. Here come the cops. You gotta press charges, or we will.”
    When the guards handed him over to the cops, G-Dogg reached for something in his pocket. I couldn’t make out what it was. But I knew it wasn’t a toy.
    â€œYou need to surrender your weapon,” one of the cops said to G-Dogg.
    I don’t know if G-Dogg was just that crazy or just that high, but he shot his gun in the air. I grabbed Evan and tugged her out of the way. At that moment, chaos broke out. Teddi, Quisa, and Millie came to my side and hugged me. The events we witnessed next made our horrible night turn even worse.
    All four white police started closing in on G-Dogg. Two came up behind him and forced him to the ground. They just started clobbering the boy with their sticks. With a bloody face and busted mouth, I personally, was satisfied. He was contained, but they started beating him some more. People came out of the store and joined us in yelling for them to stop. The cruel po-po wouldn’t.
    We’d called the cops on this dude so he wouldn’t kill our friend, and now it seemed he was being abused. We couldn’t win for losing. If Evan wasn’t into this G-Dogg character enough, now she was over the top for him. What was I gonna do about all this violence galore?

6
    PESKY
    â€œ T hat’s a violation of his rights hitting him like that!” I yelled out as I charged toward the cops hitting a guy I hated defending—yet I hated him getting beaten even more.
    How could I have been so wrong? How could I have trusted the system to take him in and prosecute him the right way? I wanted to be a trial lawyer so I could make a difference. Was I being naive that I trusted the system would uphold justice? Evan tried to tell me that cops in this town didn’t treat fairly black men who don’t look a certain way. As I looked back at her helpless face, I felt horrible.
    â€œSomebody help him! Somebody call someone!” I screamed out as Teddi and Millie held me back from getting in the middle of the hideous action.
    â€œWhy are you trying to help this criminal out?” a bystander yelled out to me. “He hit your friend!”
    I’m not saying just because the assailant was black, young, and male that everyone was against him. But I thought it was very ironic that the person telling me to ignore what I was seeing was a white man who seemed happy to throw away the key on another brother.
    â€œDo you think what they’re doing to him is right?” I asked the man standing to my left.
    â€œDo you think him discharging a gun is right!” he screamed back at me. “He could have killed someone.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, Hailey,” Millie said with her cell pointed at everyone. “I’m recording all this on my phone. Cops, you all need to stop.”
    â€œGet him in the back of the car now and let’s take him to the station,” one of the cops said to the other. “These are just a bunch of young kids making noise, and they can’t do anything.”
    Teddi said, “With videotape we will do something.”
    G-Dogg looked worse than Rodney King, who’d suffered police brutality in the early nineties from the Los Angeles police department. G-Dogg had swollen eyes and a