Parents, students and civil rights activists gathered on Monday, Dec. 23, in front of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Devonshire Department in Northridge to demand justice in what they are calling a racially motivated beating of 13-year-old Sal’Vyion “Sal” Torres. Outrage from the community erupted following an attack on the African American eighth-grade student at Ernest Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth.
“We want this to be charged as a hate crime because that’s what it was,” said Najee Ali, senior organizer with LA Metropolitan Churches.
On Dec. 6, Sal said he and his friends were helping his grandmother carry items from the school out to her car when, unprompted, an adult assailant, a mid-40s white man and parent at the school, physically assaulted Sal while hurling racial slurs including the N-word. The man reportedly rushed at Sal, grabbed him by the neck, threw him on the ground face down, folded his arm and put his knee in the back of his neck. Sal suffered a concussion, contusion, neck sprain and a closed head injury…