A group of skateboarders is upset over a YouTube video depicting a Baltimore police officer pushing and yelling at a teenager who called him “dude.”
“It’s obviously an incident that drew attention to the plight of our youth and adult skateboarders,” said Stephanie Murdock, the president of Skatepark of Baltimore. “I?m upset by the way the situation was handled. If it were kids playing baseball, I doubt they would have been treated the same way.”
A Baltimore police officer was suspended with pay this week after a video surfaced Saturday on the Web site YouTube.com, depicting him yelling at, pushing and bullying a skateboarder after the teen allegedly disrespected him.
In a letter to the Baltimore City Council mailed Wednesday, Murdock said the incident underscores the need for a second, larger skateboarding park for teens.
“The entire skateboarding community of Baltimore is currently being underserved with the facilities we have in place,” wrote Murdock, who said she had already heard back from two council members.
“If your city doesn?t have a skatepark, your city is a skatepark,” the letter said.
The YouTube video in question showed Officer Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year veteran of the department, patrolling the Inner Harbor in mid-July, when he came upon some skateboarders and told them skateboarding was not allowed there.
According to the video, Rivieri took offense after one skateboarder, Eric Bush, 14, called him “dude.”
The officer pushed the 5-foot-7-inch, 125-pound teen to the ground and grabbed his skateboard, shouting: “Sit down! I?m not a dude!”
Bush?s mother, Peggy Miller, said suspending the officer with pay isn?t enough punishment.
“He?s getting a vacation out of this,” she said.
Murdock, meanwhile, said her group has received a $30,000 grant from the Abel Foundation and raised $11,000 independently toward building a $1 million park in the city.
“The only skatepark in Baltimore is Carroll Park, which is only 10,000 square feet,” she said. “We need close to 64,000 square feet for the number of skaters we have.”
