Breaking News for Black America

Retired Nassau County, New York corrections officer Ronald Lanier broke down sobbing at a press conference when he recalled the physical and emotional assault by two White police officers who racially profiled him, CBS News New York reports.

Lanier said the Garden City police officers tackled him on Nov. 30 in a supermarket. He identified himself to them as a former law enforcement officer, but they laughed and proceed to rough him up.

“I’ve never been cursed, physically abused, beaten and treated like a slave as I was two days ago,” said Lanier, who ended up hospitalized for his injuries.

“For somebody to grab me by the neck in the supermarket, and I’m telling you, ‘I’m one of you,’ and you disrespect it — it was like you’re just another Black dude,” he added.

The police department declined to identify the officers involved in the incident. A spokesperson told CBS that the cops were searching for a Black shoplifting suspect who fled into the supermarket.

“That doesn’t give you the right to go into a store and grab the first Black person you see and throw them to the ground,” Lanier’s his attorney, Fred Brewington, told 1010 WINS, according to CBS.

The officers released Lanier after he sat in their patrol car for 20 minutes.

“The sergeant, without any apology or any other way of making it clear that they were acknowledging the mistake that they had made, just said cut him loose,” the attorney stated.

Brewington plans to file a civil rights lawsuit, and wants the officers to lose their badges and weapons.