His name is Justin Howell, and he is in critical condition after being struck by Austin police officers and his brother, Joshua Howell, decided to bring attention to the matter.
The young African American man is a political science student at Texas State University.
He was injured while taken part in a protest after George Floyd‘s death in Minneapolis by a white police officer who placed his knee on his neck for almost 10 minutes.
The 20-year-old protester was marching with thousands of others in Austin, Texas, on May 31, when a police officer shot him in the head with beanbag rounds that they described as “less-lethal” ammunition.
A video showed that several activists were carrying Justin to Austin Police Department headquarters (APD HQ) after he suffered the life-threatening injuries, and that is when an insult to injury situation occurred.
A black 20-year-old student Justin Howell is in critical condition with brain damage after @Austin_Police deliberately shot him in the head; then shot the medics helping him.
Resign @Chief_Manley & @MayorAdler.#hisnameisjustinhowell #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/G5Pb0X6UGG
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) June 4, 2020
The disturbing video also showed police shooting several times at volunteer paramedics and protesters as they were carrying Justin’s limp body to APD to get the urgent medical care that he needed.
Maredith Michael, a volunteer protest paramedic, who helped Justin, shared a post on Facebook giving more detail about the incident: “I begged them to help the young man, and I begged them to help me… But they just continued to fire these “less lethal” bean bags into the crowd. They told me to back off, and they told me to move the fu*k away.”
In a moving piece, Joshua, who is the opinion editor for Texas A&M’s student newspaper, The Battalion, gave an update on his brother.
He revealed that Justin had his skull fractured and is suffering from brain damage after police shot him in the head.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, who seems embarrassed by the video in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, has published a video where he spoke about the incident.
Manley, who was emotional, said: “I’m crushed. I’ve cried a few times today. These were two very young people that we believe are from our community, but regardless of what community they are from … one is, at least, fighting for their life, and the other one has been seriously injured. That is not what we set out to do as a police department. That was not what we set out to do this weekend. Again, we were trying to come out and protect their First Amendment right.”
Along with Justin, Brad Ayala, a 16-year-old boy shot in the middle of the forehead by police and his sister, Valarie Sanchez, had this to say: “The bullet stayed inside his head for five hours. The front of his head is fractured and dented, and he had some bleeding.”
Joshua responded to the police statement by saying that it is not enough and that law enforcers need to be held accountable for their horrific actions.
