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If you are returning from a trip and you are standing at your front door unlocking it with your key and you are suddenly challenged by a police officer, regardless of your respective ancestral lineage, it is likely to make you
1) Frightened knowing suspect shootings can happen (you can be shot by the officer);
2) Angry because it’s your house and the officer doesn’t believe you;
3) confused and disoriented;
4) Enraged by the officer’s behavior and your good judgment goes out the window.
If you are a police officer who finds himself standing in front of a home you believe is under assault by an intruder, regardless of your respective ancestral lineage, it is likely to make you
1) Frightened knowing suspect shootings can happen (you can be shot by the suspect);
2) Angry because the suspect says it’s his house and you don’t believe him;
3) confused and disoriented;
4) Enraged by the suspect’s behavior and your usual good judgment goes out the window.
And that’s exactly what happened. Both men, an honored professor at a university and an honored police officer at the local police department, participated in a pissing contest and everyone lost.
I am a 64-year-old white female, a little older than Professor Gates (58), and quite a bit older than Sergeant Crowley (42) and I’ve been profiled and so has my son. My daughter was involved in a profiling incident though she was not the target.
Incident #1: It was in southern California. You haven’t lived until you have driven in southern California. The density of the traffic is intense. You can be speeding down the freeway with cars so close to your rear bumper and so close to your front bumper that if anyone sneezed it would cause a twenty-car pile up. If you miss your turn, you have to drive miles before getting anywhere near your original destination.
I made an illegal left-hand turn in an old clunker car (apparent dead beat profile). I was in a long line of cars making a turn that would take us to a major freeway onramp, but some traffic went slightly to the right of the freeway onramp then continued south on the heavily traveled boulevard with freeway traffic entering and exiting the interchange by the hundreds.
While lining up to make the turn that I had made hundreds of times, a red light flashed in my rearview mirror. I turned around and made a motion and mouthed, “Who, me?” The police officer nodded his head. I was shocked because I knew that I surely had not committed a traffic faux pas. The clunker, I thought, must have had something hanging off of it and the officer wanted to bring it to my attention.
So when the line started slowly moving, instead of getting on the freeway, which is where I desperately needed to go, I obeyed the direction of the officer now pointing somewhat wildly to the curb area on the opposite side of the busy boulevard. It was difficult to get to the curb on the far right from where I was on the far left and since I was being followed by a police car I didn’t want to get a ticket and so I carefully edged over there, but it took some time.
I could see him waving and pointing from within his car wondering where I was going. Then I heard the “whirp whirp” of the siren and through a loud speaker, “Pull over to the side of the road.” I pointed and gestured that I was TRYING to accommodate. I remember a shoulder shrug with my hands up as if to say, “What should I do?”
I made it safely over to the curb, turned off the engine, pulled out my driver’s license, and as I looked up smiling with a potential “hello” ready (but not delivered) he lit into me as though he had captured the hillside strangler. He started with, “When a police officer instructs you to get over, you must do so immediately. Were you evading my stop?” Evading his stop? On a huge boulevard with hundreds of cars trying to kill me? (I wanted to say that but I didn’t.) I was so confused and disoriented (like the professor and the sergeant) that I dared to say, “Huh?” This further enraged him and he demanded my driver’s license then whisked it away to his patrol car and investigated whether or not I was personified evil in a stolen car (my clunker).
Having no luck, thereby ruining his chances of cuffing me and hauling me off, he launched into a tirade about my illegal left-hand turn. Most of it I didn’t understand. When I tried to ask a question (opening my mouth) he became red-faced and began gesturing, again, with both hands. At one point, while trying to explain myself (like the professor and the sergeant) he stopped me and with great restraint said, and I’m paraphrasing because I truly have no idea what he actually said but this is what I’ve come to believe over the years, “You were not in the turn lane. You were in oncoming traffic. Every single day you people slide into position way too early because there’s too many of you and then you end up in oncoming traffic. The designated turn lane itself is way the hell up there and you were about five car lengths away from where it begins.”
I, of course, started crying. I wasn’t crying about the damn turn. I was crying because I knew I was dealing with a maniac and I was going to get shot no matter what I said. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And so, I said nothing further (unlike the professor and the sergeant). For my family and friends, this came as a shock when I retold the story, but I was truly frightened of this giant man (I was still seated in my car). The crying somehow defused the situation and instead he snarled, “Why are you crying?” I didn’t respond because I was crying too hard. I believe to this day it woke him up (unlike the professor and the sergeant where nothing woke either of them up).
Several days after the event I concluded he was extremely irritated about that turn lane problem, was probably powerless to change it, perhaps had witnessed terrible accidents, had no doubt complained about it for years, and probably had countless fights with countless people heading into oncoming traffic—FOR YEARS AND YEARS.
And I had no idea I was driving into oncoming traffic. It didn’t appear that way. As we all do when driving, especially repetitive driving we do every day, I never saw that the lane didn’t start where I joined in. I just followed the crowd. But, and this is very important, he did not stop any of the nice cars. He stopped me in my clunker with the windows down because it didn’t have air conditioning and my hair was a swirl of snarls making me look a little psycho.
There were cars BEHIND him too. They were more in violation than I was, being further into the oncoming traffic, because I was almost within the left turn painted lines or at least closer than they were. It was easier to deal with the ditzy blond in the clunker than the slick fella in the BMW who was in front of me. The BMW violated the law first. I was behind him. Why not him? There were even more cars in front of him. The officer had a dozen to choose from but he picked me. Perhaps I fit the profile of a careless wild looking young woman driver in a clunker car who probably wasn’t responsible otherwise she wouldn’t be driving such a car and she’d buy a comb. I was also the path of least resistance, another profile of who I was or might have been.
And so, because I shut up, this horrendous event concluded (with a ticket) and I left. I could barely drive. We didn’t have cell phones then and I was far from home. As soon as I could make a right turn I pulled over and sat in the car for a while. At this point I had no idea how to return to my original position of attempting to get on the freeway. That lesson was so well learned that I told both children, many times, that no matter what happened in an encounter “with the law” to shut up.
Incident #2: My son and three friends were on the freeway and they were pulled over. They were told to get out of the car at gunpoint by a group of CHP officers. This is a little strong for speeding so being smart young men they knew something was seriously wrong. Sure enough, they fit the profile of men and a car known to have committed a crime involving a teenage girl with long dark hair. One of the boys with my son had long dark hair so he fit the description of the teen girl. There were other factors that made the officers believe these were the suspects and the girl. However, because my son and his friends kept their mouths closed, it didn’t take long for the entire nasty business to conclude with no one getting shot or arrested. It did take the breath out of the boys, but it ended.
Incident #3: My son and two friends met to attend a nightclub to see a particular band they enjoyed in a neighborhood not known for ice cream parlors. They decided to get there early to be first in line to buy tickets and find good seats. They went to the club, sat on the sidewalk, and leaned against the wall near the doorway (the club was not open), and awaited the arrival of the crowd and bouncers. I believe at the time they were dressed in the attire of whatever image they were emulating in that era and it wasn’t a suit and tie.
As they sat there chatting and smoking (cigarettes), police cars pulled up and told them to get up and do a variety of things (spread your legs, lean against the wall, be quiet, the usual TV stuff). They did this without question though I’m not sure why. I can see my son doing it because of my countless admonitions but maybe the others had parents with similar life experiences. Soon the officers left and it was NEVER clear why they were “examined.” Perhaps they fit the profile of loitering malcontents.
Incident #4: My daughter was in her friend’s cute little car out for an evening. My daughter looks like Cinderella (1/2 Danish ancestry) and her friend looks like Jasmine (Latina ancestry). It’s a Disney thing. The two girls were adorable together and turned the heads of all races. At some point in the evening, they were pulled over by police officers and rudely grilled about the ownership of the car. The lead officer demanded ownership documentation, driver’s license, etc. At one point the officer bent down so he could see the passenger, my Cinderella daughter, and the words out of her sweet mouth were, “What is your name and what is your badge number and why are you pulling us over and we didn’t do anything wrong and why don’t you think this is her car and if I was driving would you have pulled me over” and so on. She also had a trump card. My employment was closely affiliated with the police department and she sort of let it roll off her tongue, “and my mom works for . . .” Within minutes it was over. I was horrified when she told me this story and explained how very badly it could have gone but she was infuriated and mortified for her friend to be treated that way. And she never listens to me anyway so why was I surprised?
Had her friend been alone or with a Latina friend, how would it have ended? As the girls drove off they discussed the episode and her friend said it happened all the time. Not just to her but to her friends. All of her friends had good jobs and worked hard to buy nice clothes and cars. In the entire time my daughter has been driving she has never once been pulled over and had her vehicle ownership challenged. Nor have I. Nor has my son. Nor has any white person I have known. I had the good fortune to live in Detroit many years ago. I was in the minority and the population in the area where I lived and worked was primarily African-American. I’m white. I should have been pulled over for something but I never was.
So, yes, we have profiling. And the time to try to change our justice system is not at the front door of our home screaming at a cop unless we want to extend our trip and spend the night in jail. And a cop who supposedly teaches sensitivity courses on how to avoid profiling should not be arresting people who have just been profiled. He was angry and used his power.
The professor should have contained his anger, and then the next day contacted the press, his attorney, the ACLU, the president of the United States, and raised a giant fuss. With his prestige he should have taken this problem on in a vigorous intelligent way and gone on TV with his head held high as he fought the good fight.
And the officer should have done likewise explaining that he was only doing his duty and he was simply there to check out a possible robbery and should have offered information on how suspect investigation works. Both of these gentlemen have done this but not in a positive way. They are both defending their positions and not backing down (as of this writing). Someone should put the two of them in a room and lock the door and let them hash it out. Oh, wait. I think President Obama is trying that. In fact, their bad behavior is being rewarded with a private visit with our country’s leader along with a chilled adult beverage. Maybe if I kick the mailman I can get a private visit with Hillary and a glass of wine.
I heard a legal analyst state on the radio this afternoon that had the professor stayed inside his house he could have continued screaming, but the officers told him to come outside which changed the legal dynamics as they relate to our civil rights. Your rights change somewhat if you are on your porch. The professor no doubt didn’t know about this crack in the system.
Now everyone is lining up and taking sides and it’s creating more divisiveness and distrust between us. Is there any wonder the world is in such conflict? When we watch TV and view programs that promote vicious and outrageous competition driving people to hate each other, for pleasure, why are we in a snit about this recent news event? We just flat out don’t get along very well and we don’t do a lot to try to do better.
And finally, the bottom line is, we have sanctioned law enforcement to have the power. If we want to change it, we must join the hundreds of watchdog groups that investigate these matters, communicate with our political leaders, but mostly, keep our mouths shut when stopped by the police, and be thankful we don’t live North Korea. And if you want to be a bully, move to North Korea. Their training is excellent.
http://www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com
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