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Source: Rich Fury / Getty
Rep. Maxine Waters was filmed over the weekend ensuring that a Black man was safe after he was detained by police in her Los Angeles congressional district.
“They stopped a brother, so I stopped to see what they were doing,” Waters 81, says to the individual recording the incident which took place on Friday, according to TMZ. The car was stopped on South Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. Waters stands in front of her SUV parked on the road in front of the stop in progress.
“They said I’m in the wrong place and that they’re going to give me a ticket,” she adds in reference to the LA County sheriff’s deputies who can be seen in the frame.“That’s OK as long as I watch them.”
“Gotta do what you gotta do! Make sure!” a woman in the background says in response.
“I will,” Rep. Waters says.
“Bye, Maxine!” a man says.
Rep. Waters’ intervening to make sure there’s no foul play is similar to another viral moment in Los Angeles where actor Denzel Washington was seen helping police de-escalate a situation where a distressed Black man was walking in the middle of the road on May 21. The Academy Award-winning actor stayed until police detained the man, after he attempted to ensure him and gave him food.
With the current social and political environment, Waters’ presence is understandable as the continued deaths of Black people across America continues to flash across our phones and screens. Just a small percentage of the many state-sanctioned deaths that have had no visibility.
On the front lines Rep. Waters also recently founded the Black Women’s Forum, has fought to ban the use of chokeholds by law enforcement.
“It needs to be done all over the nation and any iteration of that, whether it is the arm or the knee or a piece of equipment, used to cut off the breathing to interfere with the ability for those who are the victims of these tactics to be killed,” she said recently, according to Spectrum News 1.