By Lisa Fogarty, Mon, November 3, 2014
A 14-year-old boy from Amarillo, Texas, was reportedly hurt by a police officer after he refused to remove his rosary beads at a middle school football game Wednesday night.

Jacob Herrera’s mother Lori Martinez says her son was approached by officer Corporal Wilson and told to take off his rosary bead necklace. A witness named Marivell Chavez says the teen was then held to the ground, where she says he shouted, “call my mom” and “I can’t breathe,” reports Newschannel10.com.

“You know he handcuffed him and then crossed him across the street right there and slammed him again and he repeatedly slammed the child on the floor,” Chavez said.

But a spokesperson for the Amarillo Police Department denies the allegations and says the officer acted accordingly after the teen began fighting with him and refusing to remove the beads. Rosaries are reportedly a symbol of an association with a gang, and though police say they aren’t accusing Jacob of having gang ties, the religious item is prohibited at school events.




“He was fighting with the officer, he wouldn’t comply with the commands, he wouldn’t put his arms behind his back,” said Cpl Jerry Neufeld. “The officer used a couple of different compliance holds to try and get him to put his hands behind his back, he did not deploy his taser, he just tried to get him under control. They rolled on the ground for several minutes.”

Martinez says her son is not a gang member and that he wears the rosary because it has sentimental value to him after the death of his sibling. Jacob is currently being held at the Youth Center of High Plains. Some of his friends at Amarillo ISD and other parents who say they witnessed the confrontation wore rosaries Thursday to symbolize their demand for justice for the student.

But Jacob’s school seems to be sticking with the law on this one.

Amarillo ISD released the following statement: “Last night at one of our schools, a student was identified as being in violation of the dress code for wearing an item in a manner which is considered to be gang related by local and national law enforcement. A school administrator and liaison officer asked the student to either comply with the dress code rules or leave school property. The student repeatedly refused to comply with either option. At that time, the student was arrested for trespassing.”

Update

A response via Cpl. Jerry Neufeld of the Amarillo Police Department:

The president of New Jersey’s Catholic HealthCare Partnership has charged that the state’s largest insurance company “schemed in secret” to exclude Catholic hospitals from a new health-insurance programs.

Sister Patricia Codey said that only religious discrimination could explain why Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield did not include Catholic hospitals in a new group of health-care plans. She said that the Catholic hospitals were known for quality of care and efficiency in handling costs.

The insurance company denied having considered the religious affiliations of hospitals included in the plan, and said that the plans were based solely on the “demonstrated commitment of those health systems to move from fee-for-service to fee-for-value health care.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26267