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NAACP chapter president claims excessive force used on sister By Steven DuBois The Associatd Press Aug 04, 2015 12:00 AM A A PORTLAND — An NAACP chapter president says police in Eugene used excessive force on his sister after she tried to stop an officer from deploying a Taser stun gun on her 19-year-old son. Eugene-Springfield NAACP President Eric Richardson said Ayisha Brown called a mental health service early July 16 because her son was in crisis. The assistance team could not respond, and police officers arrived. Richardson, who said he witnessed the incident, said Brown hugged her agitated son to prevent an officer from using the stun gun. An officer, who was white, threw Brown to the ground, put a knee in her back and arrested her, Richardson said. His sister, he said, suffered a concussion and has back and knee problems. Richardson said he raised his hands and identified himself as the chapter president of the NAACP. He said the officers told him he was at risk of being tased. "I asked everyone to calm down, and I don't believe my efforts were respected," he said. Richardson said he has spoken with Police Chief Pete Kerns about the incident, and those talks have gone well. Richardson said his goals are to improve police training and transparency, while boosting resources for mental health. "I want to be as positive as possible, while at the same time showing that I felt the whole situation that happened to my sister was unjust," he said in a phone interview Tuesday. Police and jail records obtained by The Register-Guard newspaper show Brown was booked into jail on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with police. She was released the same day, and prosecutors declined to file formal charges. Kerns did not immediately return phone messages left with his office Tuesday. He said in a statement on Monday that the allegations merit review, but Richardson's account "is not how we understand the event to have occurred." He and Richardson, however, see eye-to-eye on the issue of mental health. "Our hope is that, together with NAACP and others, we can create greater mental health care capacity and better ways to care for people whose lives would benefit from those services," Kerns said. Eugene attorney Brian Michaels said he plans to file a lawsuit on behalf of Brown and her son. "In our opinion, there was a certain racial overtone here," Michaels said. "We don't believe these officers were out gunning for blacks that night by any sense of the word. But I think if it were a white woman hugging her white son, they wouldn't have tased. I think they would have felt more familiar, more comfortable."