NSBE Stands Beside Accomplished Member Brandon Calloway In Police Brutality Case

NSBE Stands Beside Accomplished Member Brandon Calloway In Police Brutality Case

NSBE Family,
 
Another season of turbulence has brought us yet another violent incident spotlighting race and injustice in the United States of America. This time, the violence has hit home, within our family, within the membership of the National Society of Black Engineers.
 
Brandon Calloway is a spring 2022 graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, in electrical engineering, and a member of NSBE in Region III. The lawyer for the Calloway family reports that on July 16, Oakland, Tennessee, police officers pursued Brandon to his father’s home and inside the house for traffic violations — speeding and running a stop sign. The lawyer reports that Brandon was beaten and severely injured during the incident. Photos showing Brandon with bloodied face, in police custody, have gone viral on social media.
 
This news is heartbreaking, but the National Society of Black Engineers will continue to stand firm with our member Brandon Calloway and his family until justice is served.
 
NSBE is fully aware of the generations-long record of police violence against African Americans, and the equally long record of other types of police misconduct involving our community, in Tennessee and around the nation. We will keep that record at front of mind as we await the prompt release of all evidence held by the Oakland Police — including in-car police video footage and police body cam footage — relevant to this very disturbing case.
 
Brandon exemplifies NSBE’s ideals of academic excellence, professional success and leadership, but as this painful incident clearly shows, those ideals must stand on a firm foundation of social justice. That is why we have made social justice our focus. Freedom, justice, equality: if they aren’t for everyone then they aren’t for anyone. 
 
NSBE was founded more than 47 years ago by Black engineering students who saw STEM knowledge and STEM proficiency as a path to the goal of greater opportunity for African Americans, greater power for the Black community and true equality for all Americans. Brandon Calloway, and all NSBE members, hold the legacy of that vision. And we will continue to fight to make it real.
 
Please look for continuing updates from NSBE’s leadership about Brandon’s health and well-being, and please keep him, his family and his community in your prayers.
 
Yours in solidarity,
 
Favour Nerrise
2021-23 National Executive Board Chair
National Society of Black Engineers
 
Janeen Uzzell
Chief Executive Officer
National Society of Black Engineers