How old were you, when a cop 1st pulled a gun on you? - Charles Blow, CBS Sunday morning
Recently, I reposted a meme on social media: "How old were you when a cop 1st pulled a gun on you?" I captioned it, "I was 18. You?"
In fact, I was a college freshman in Louisiana, president of my class, and an officer had manufactured a reason to pull me and a friend over. When attempting to retrieve my license and registration, a comb fell out of the glove box that the officer mistook as a weapon.
Out came the gun, and up went my hands.
When my friend objected to the stop, the officer made clear his power: he told us that he could make us lay down in the middle of the road, shoot us in the head, and no one would say a thing.
Hundreds of people responded to my post, many with equally horrific stories, some saying they were as young as five years old when their incident occurred. One commenter said that he was in his father's arms and the gun was aimed at his father.
Of those whose race seemed clear to me, most of the black responders, mostly men, had experienced such a trauma, and most of the white people hadn't.
This is not uncommon. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that six in 10 black men say that they have been unfairly stopped by police.
These incidents don't make the news. No one dies.
But trust dies.
Faith in systems dies.
Innocence dies.
These incidents demonstrate the savagery of the system, and the powerlessness of everyday people. And, when people think that the system is unresponsive and unrestrained, they have little investment in it and little respect for it. That, for a society, is a dangerous condition.
The fact that most black men will join the dubious club of the unfairly stopped, sometimes violently so, makes everyone less safe, not more so.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-m-blow-on-race-and-the-power-held-by-police/
tblue37
(65,340 posts)Jersey Devlin
(85 posts)Which, of course, demonstrates Blow's point!
question everything
(47,479 posts)Jersey Devlin
(85 posts)bluescribbler
(2,116 posts)I was arrested twice in 1972, once by CHP for marijuana possession, once by Shore Patrol for a grooming violation, (hair was too long). In neither case was an officer's sidearm drawn. Of course, it may have something to do with my complexion. I descend from English and Scottish immigrants.
Jarqui
(10,124 posts)I was speeding.
Cop was coming the other way.
Cop did a U-turn.
Cherry tops - I didn't hear the siren - not sure he put that on.
I was way ahead.
I wasn't sure he was after me.
So I left turned to go home and then right turned, like I normally would to go home.
I was now on a residential street.
Saw the cherry tops make the turn behind me - it was now likely he was after me.
Cars were parked so I pulled into the end of a drive way - couldn't stop on the road or I would have blocked cars getting by in either direction.
I got out of the car - hot night - and waited for him. He was about a block away.
I was standing with my rump against the back of the car, car turned off and arms crossed - doing nothing but waiting for him.
He screeches to a halt across the driveway I'm in.
Jumps out of his car.
Pulls his revolver and shines a bright flashlight on me even though there are street lights.
Tell me to put my hands up.
I said "Easy cowboy, this isn't the movies!"
He gave me a speeding ticket.
Jittery cop seemed way over the top to me.
Solly Mack
(90,765 posts)stillcool
(32,626 posts)but I did get a ride home after a cop pulled me over for drunk driving. I was driving the wrong way on a highway. After he dropped me off, he came back. I thought he'd changed his mind, but I'd left a hairbrush in his car. One night while out with a friend, we got pulled over. The cop said my friend was too drunk to drive, and told me to drive. I didn't make it to the end of the street, before he pulled us over again. He gave us a ride home. I had 3 accidents. Hit a tree, a telephone pole, and drove into a store. No problems. I got one ticket for speeding in my lifetime.