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My name is Nicholas Perth, I'm from Harlem, I've lived here all my life. Definitely over
ten times. The first time I complained was when I was 18 years old. it was my birthday
weekend. It was like, two or three in the morning, and the cops randomly rolled up on
us and pulled out guns, and told us to get down on the ground they searched us all. I
had on basketball shorts, and they assumed...they said that someone called and we had a gun.
And he actually played it back on the radio, and said that someone mentioned someone with
blue shorts had a gun, and I had on blue shorts, but I had nothing on me. I filed a complaint,
and they got back to me about it a year and a half later and they told me that my story
wasn't valid--that it wasn't enough evidence, basically, that it was justified, what they
did. And since then, I never complained, I've just never complained again. So if they can
get away with that, they can get away with a whole lotta other stuff. It's my word against
theirs, and it's like, what--18-year-olds? It's devastating. It's like, it's something
that we have to get used to, you know, almost like it's a right of passage, and it's devastating.