Commentary: Police tackled me for stealing a car. It was my own.

[MrScorpio]

Lawrence Crosby

I was face down on the pavement. One police officer was kneeing me in the back, while others pulled or punched. They paid no attention to my screams identifying myself as an engineering Ph.D. student at Northwestern University. They just kept punching. One shouted, "Stop resisting!"

The record is on the dash-cam footage: It's nighttime. I step out of my car, bewildered at being pulled over and surrounded by police vehicles in the college town I've lived in for years. I hold my hands up high, shocked to see several guns pointed at me. It turns out a fellow student had called the police to report that someone was trying to steal a car. That someone was me. The car was my own. I had a key.

"I don't know if I'm, like, racial profiling," the woman had told the 911 dispatcher. To her and to the police, I was a black man in a hoodie. After the cops arrived, after they tackled me, and after they determined that the car was, indeed, my own, they charged me anyway.

Resisting arrest, they said. One cop joked to another that I "should feel lucky" he didn't shoot me.

I don't feel lucky. Every time I see the video from that October 2015 encounter, I experience fear, anger and terror. Fear that the color of my skin will make me out to be a criminal when I have broken no laws. Anger at the blatant disregard for human life and rights that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee to all citizens. Terror to have come — perhaps — within seconds of being shot by people sworn to serve and protect.

Amadou Diallo, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, Philando Castile. Their stories — like many others — are all too familiar. They all suffered gross overreactions by officers of the peace. Unfortunately, you will never hear their side of the stories, as they didn't get the chance to speak before being shot to death. But you can hear mine.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-police-evanston-racial-profiling-black-man-0704-story.html

[lpbk2713]

1. I've seen this scenario on Cops a few times.

Three or four gorillas have a suspect pinned down on the ground.
One has both knees in the guy's kidneys. And they are all yelling
"STOP RESISTING". And I wonder ... how the hell is it even
possible judges can take these bullies seriously?

[brer cat]

4. Judges and juries are just as guilty of racial profiling as the cops.

"Stop resisting" is nothing more than planting the seed: he made us do it to him.

[malaise]

2. What to a slave is the 4th July

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/

[northoftheborder]

3. Thanks for posting this majestic speech from a great American. Saved.

[malaise]

5. An amazing speech

I read it every July 4th

[Hoyt]

6. I'd like to hear what dispatchers said when calling officers. They need to broadcast "Report is from

a potentially crazy white person who may just be another racist, be sure to assess situation properly when approaching driver."

[MrScorpio]

7. Here's the dispatch audio paired with the video of the stop...

You might be interested to listen to the exchange starting at 10:42 on the vid, when she was having a breakdown about the way she racial profiled the driver and the cop immediately shushed her.

Those white women tears are mighty powerful, you know.

Also check out at 17:20 when they let her go on her way, listen to the cops right after that trying to cover their own asses as well.

[Hoyt]

8. Thanks. I hope this junk stops soon.

[Scurrilous]

9. K&R