Victim of cop brutality needs help!
Donation protected
Elderly Indian citizen needs your help and support after being left partially paralyzed due to AL police brutality.
Sureshbhai Patel, 57, had arrived in the US to live with his son (Chirag Patel) , his wife and to care for his 17 month old grand child with developmental difficulties.
About a week after his arrival, Chirag's dad just like all the parents visiting from India, took took a leisurely stroll in the quiet neighborhood where his son lived. He was walking on the sidewalk soaking in the beauty of the world around him.
Turns out one of the neightbors, who hadn't seen him before in the neighborhood, thought he looked suspicious and called the cops on him .
Listen to the call from the neighbor - http://media.al.com/news_huntsville_impact/audio/india-grandfather.mp3
When the cops arrived, Sureshbhai, had a tough time communicating with them in English as he speaks only Gujarati and a smatter of Hindi.
What happened next is nothing short of appalling...
Watch the video here - http://wapo.st/17pnSFu
In trying to do a pat down body search, the cops used brutal force. They forcefully pushed the frail elderly man to the ground, causing him grevious injuries leaving him bleeding from the face, broken neck and partially paralyzed on the left side requiring extensive surgery, and long term therapy and rehabilitiation.
Sureshbhai underwent surgery in the Huntsville Hospital where doctors performed a cervical fusion. Sureshbhai faces a long road to recovery and is only beginning to regain feeling in his arms and one leg.
The family has hired a local attorney to sue the Madison Police Department.
The funds raised will be provided directly to the family to help cover medical bills (the victim has no medical insurance) and other fees related to this incident.
Note: Considering there are a lot of scams and stories of people taking advantage of the donors' generosity, I am sharing some info about myself.
My name is Usha Raghavan, and while I am not directly related to the Patel family, I am a friend of Chirag Patel. This news story resonated with me because my mom went through a similar situation, and the help (not financial, but prompt medical attention) from lots of kind strangers helped my mom recover. Also, my dad regularly goes on long strolls around my neighborhood and this could have well been him.
I live in the Bay Area, where you see a lot of South Asian elderly parents taking walks around neighborhoods to get fresh air, get to know and soak in the cities their kids live in.
In the next week or so, hopefully this page will have reached its funding goal, I will forward a 100% of the donations received from this fund drive to Chirag Patel, the victims son.
Happy to answer any questions.
https://www.facebook.com/chiragpatelsdad
Links to Articles:
Video
Grandfather visiting Alabama from India stopped by police while taking walk, left partly paralyzed
Officer on leave after use of force incident
US policeman leaves Indian partially paralyzed
Reddit
Sureshbhai Patel, 57, had arrived in the US to live with his son (Chirag Patel) , his wife and to care for his 17 month old grand child with developmental difficulties.
About a week after his arrival, Chirag's dad just like all the parents visiting from India, took took a leisurely stroll in the quiet neighborhood where his son lived. He was walking on the sidewalk soaking in the beauty of the world around him.
Turns out one of the neightbors, who hadn't seen him before in the neighborhood, thought he looked suspicious and called the cops on him .
Listen to the call from the neighbor - http://media.al.com/news_huntsville_impact/audio/india-grandfather.mp3
When the cops arrived, Sureshbhai, had a tough time communicating with them in English as he speaks only Gujarati and a smatter of Hindi.
What happened next is nothing short of appalling...
Watch the video here - http://wapo.st/17pnSFu
In trying to do a pat down body search, the cops used brutal force. They forcefully pushed the frail elderly man to the ground, causing him grevious injuries leaving him bleeding from the face, broken neck and partially paralyzed on the left side requiring extensive surgery, and long term therapy and rehabilitiation.
Sureshbhai underwent surgery in the Huntsville Hospital where doctors performed a cervical fusion. Sureshbhai faces a long road to recovery and is only beginning to regain feeling in his arms and one leg.
The family has hired a local attorney to sue the Madison Police Department.
The funds raised will be provided directly to the family to help cover medical bills (the victim has no medical insurance) and other fees related to this incident.
Note: Considering there are a lot of scams and stories of people taking advantage of the donors' generosity, I am sharing some info about myself.
My name is Usha Raghavan, and while I am not directly related to the Patel family, I am a friend of Chirag Patel. This news story resonated with me because my mom went through a similar situation, and the help (not financial, but prompt medical attention) from lots of kind strangers helped my mom recover. Also, my dad regularly goes on long strolls around my neighborhood and this could have well been him.
I live in the Bay Area, where you see a lot of South Asian elderly parents taking walks around neighborhoods to get fresh air, get to know and soak in the cities their kids live in.
In the next week or so, hopefully this page will have reached its funding goal, I will forward a 100% of the donations received from this fund drive to Chirag Patel, the victims son.
Happy to answer any questions.
https://www.facebook.com/chiragpatelsdad
Links to Articles:
Video
Grandfather visiting Alabama from India stopped by police while taking walk, left partly paralyzed
Officer on leave after use of force incident
US policeman leaves Indian partially paralyzed
Organizer
Usha Raghavan
Organizer
Union City, CA