Delisha Upshaw was worried when she heard that a Black child had been assaulted by an adult hurling racial slurs at a recreation center in Livonia.
The mother of two Black children, Upshaw began searching for more information about the attack and hoped she’d learn more on Livonia Police Department’s Facebook page, which routinely posts about crimes that have been committed.
But the police department’s page, which recently posted about two Black men who were arrested for allegedly committing an unarmed robbery, contained no information about the racist attack.
Then Upshaw received a copy of two surveillance videos that showed an adult repeatedly punching a 13-year-old Black boy in the face in the lobby of the Livonia Recreation Center on June 8. No one intervened as the older man pummeled the teenager and shouted racial epithets at him.
Upshaw talked to the victim’s mother, who said she arrived at the recreational center after the attack and spotted police casually talking to the man who had assaulted her son. Meanwhile, her son was being bandaged.
When she asked why the violent perpetrator wasn’t in handcuffs, she said the man hurled racial slurs at her. The man then tried to flee, and it took six officers to subdue him.
Upshaw posted about the attack on her Facebook page on Sunday and questioned why police didn’t notify the public like they do when other crimes are committed.
“Many parents drop their teens off at ‘The Rec’ for sports with friends or whatever,” Upshaw wrote. “We assume it’s safe for our children. Parents have a right to know when there’s ‘stranger danger.’ The Rec has no security and none of the employees or the many adults using the facility at the time intervened to help the child.”
On Monday, Livonia police finally broke their silence and posted information on the attack on their Facebook page.
Police said they arrested Moeez Irfan, 29, after he “physically bumped into a 13-year-old male on a stairway, hurled racial slurs at him, and struck him in the head multiple times.”
Irfan was admitted to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and arrested after his release on June 16, according to police. He was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, resisting and obstructing police, and habitual offender third offense.
Irfan was still in jail as of Monday.
“It was a brutal attack,” Upshaw tells Metro Times. “If this had been a white child, how would this have been different? Around here, sometimes people don’t see the Black kids the same way they see the white kids.”
Allegations of racism in Livonia are nothing new. The city’s population of about 94,420 residents is 87.3% white and 4.1% Black.
Yet Livonia police have disproportionately come in contact with Black people, prompting Upshaw and others to launch a billboard campaign in 2020 warning residents about racial profiling.
The electronic billboards read, “Driving While Black? Racial profiling just ahead. Welcome to Livonia.”
In 2019, the most recent year for which numbers were available at the time, Black people accounted for 60% of the arrests and 44% of the people arrested in Livonia.
More than 140 people commented on the police department’s Facebook post about the racial attack, with some questioning why the department took so long.
“I was wondering how long it would take them to post about this,” Carey Beckett wrote.
Colleen Badgero added, “Wow, how scary. How are we just now hearing about this?? I’m glad to know he’s in custody.”
Upshaw said it’s the police department’s job to ensure people feel safe, and that includes notifying residents when an attack occurs.
“People drop their kids off [at the recreation center], and they assume they are going to be safe,” Upshaw says. “Give us a chance to prepare for something like that.”
Upshaw says the victim in the attack had a concussion, wasn’t able to finish the school year, and has memory loss.
If there’s a silver lining, she says, it’s the support the family has received from the community.
“The mother was so frustrated and alone in dealing with this, so it’s important that there is a community out there that has rallied around her to make sure the story gets told and make sure her son gets justice,” Upshaw says.
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