White Grandfather arrest by Texas Police While Walking With Black Granddaughter

[nmbluesky]

Scott Henson is a self-described Texas redneck, white and middle-aged. His granddaughter Ty -- the five-year-old daughter of his goddaughter -- is black and Mr Henson often finds himself babysitting her.
And that pairing has apparently drawn the suspicion of police in Mr Henson's hometown of Austin, Texas. Twice in three years, he has been swarmed by officers and questioned aggressively -- for no other reason than being a white man walking down the sidewalk with a little black girl, he says.
On his blog Grits for Breakfast, Mr Henson says he is the victim of 'babysitting while white' -- over-zealous racial profiling by police who are suspicious of anything out of the ordinary.
On Friday, the most recent run-in with cops, he was handcuffed and detained and separated from his terrified granddaughter by officers who claimed they had received an anonymous report of a white man kidnapping a black girl.
In November 2008, while police cordoned off parts of Austin searching for two suspected killers, Mr Henson said he received similar treatment while walking home from the park.


Read more: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2012/02/me-apd-and-babysitting-while-white-part.html

No surprise about racism in Texas

I'm glad that Barack and His grandfather lived in Hawaii, because no one arrest his grandfather because of he was white and he was with black grandson, Barack

[mysuzuki2]

1. you don't have to look the same to be family.

[Journeyman]

2. Not often you get to say it, but this wouldn't have happened if he was a black man. . .

[lonestarnot]

3. !

How astutely observant of you! Snort. Ironic isn't it.

[provis99]

6. you're right.

If he was a black grandfather with a white granddaughter, the cops would've shot him...

[SmileyRose]

16. another duzy vote

sadly............

[malaise]

15. DUzy

[uponit7771]

22. I just thought this..man, what a world we live in

[Lionessa]

4. On the one hand this sucks, on the other, the police are being diligent in regards to a black child

which in and of itself is kind of positive isn't it, for TX. Seems when I was there only white children were ever worried about at all.

[MADem]

13. I had the same mixed feelings, particularly with regard to Missing/Exploited Children alerts.

It's been sadly documented that the cops are slower to "hop to" when it comes to children of color going missing. It's just a pity the police have to go overboard and arrest when a mere questioning might do.

I'll bet they know who he is now, though!

[Posteritatis]

14. They can be "diligent" without immediately arresting someone. (nt)

[Lionessa]

18. Unless the child and adult BOTH have credible ID, which I doubt the child does,

I wouldn't want to be the officer that only asks about it and then found out tomorrow it was as I feared, not as I was told.

I would probably detain them till I was 100% sure.

[Hugabear]

23. So you would detain for no other reason than because it's an interracial family?

Unreal

[Posteritatis]

24. Might as well arrest anyone with a kid, then. Or is it just those who flunk the color test? (nt)

[Vattel]

33. Exactly.

I am so sick of police routinely violating constitutional rights. There was no probable cause for detaining this man.

[Thav]

17. I agree that diligence is due in situations like this,

But to have this happen multiple times is something that shouldn't happen today.

Officer: "Hi, we had a concern that you may be kidnapping this girl."
Him: "Yes, this has happened before. She's my granddaughter, check your records."
Officer: "Ok, one moment *calls in* .... Yup, you're right. have a nice day."
Him: "Thank you!"

In an age when everything is recorded in a database, there's little reason for situations like this to happen more than once.

Even so, the police are doing the right thing, even if they're not going the right way about it.

[Lionessa]

19. I agree with your "but" as well. All things said better this wrong than the alternative, imo.

However as noted by many including me, doing nothing or arresting him shouldn't be the only alternatives.

[Posteritatis]

25. If the cops were halfway sentient there'd be plenty of alternatives between those extremes. (nt)

[JCMach1]

5. I had never realized BO looked so much like his grandfather...

two peas in a pod so to speak...

[Cali_Democrat]

7. You know I never noticed that

When you look at Obama now and compare him to his grandfather in that picture, they look extremely similar.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Totally.

I've noticed that, before. The chin, the smile, around the eyes.

Genes are trippy.

[Odin2005]

31. My cousin's two adult sons look just like my grandfather.

It's hysterical, put them in long sportcoats and fedoras and they would look just like my Gramps back in the 30s! Very tall, lightly built, with a square face and jaw.

[Odin2005]

29. Same facial bone structure and same huge, toothy grin!

I noticed it, too, LOL!

[Vattel]

34. that's little Mitt Romney in the background just before he threw a stick at them.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. I'm glad too, nmbs...the fact that BHO

grew up in a race-tolerant culture helped to make him the fine human being he is today.
SG

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. His blog, Grits For Breakfast, is very good!

GRITS FOR BREAKFAST
WELCOME TO TEXAS JUSTICE: YOU MIGHT BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU WON'T BEAT THE RIDE.

One entry:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012
Ugly allegations, OK sentencing reforms, and how to quickly fill up your jail
Here are a few, dispareate items that deserve Grits readers attention even if I don't have time to turn them each into individual posts:

Ugly allegations at juvie boot camp
Just in time for Valentines Day, here's a story of staff-inmate romance from a juvie boot camp in San Benito that got the adult staffer fired. The blog Hair Balls adds that the probation officer was found out when the boy bragged to a friend.

Because Texas county jails aren't quite full enough
An estimated 265 Texas law enforcement agencies will participate Feb. 25 in "The Great Warrant Roundup."

Local jail health provider sells out to national company
Randall and two other Panhandle counties contracted with a private company, Panhandle Correctional Care, but the local contractor was bought out by an out of state company from Maryland, reports the Amarillo Globe News. The new proprietors promise no change in the quality of care, but only time will tell. One of the problems with contracting for core services like inmate healthcare is that if the company you contract with sells out, all of a sudden you're stuck with a vendor from out of state who you never chose. One hopes it will work out, but it's a source of instability.

Dallas detective failed to investigate thousands of cases
In Dallas, a family violence detective allegedly failed to investigate thousands of cases, letting the file stack up in his garage. "More than 500 family violence victims were revictimized by the same person" after their cases were assigned to Det. Mickey East, reported Scott Goldstein at the Dallas Morning News (behind paywall). Remarkably, "East retired on Thursday after nearly 38 years on the force." Remarkably, "East had no prior disciplinary history," though he "was facing discipline that could have included termination." No one knows for sure how long this went on, but "Problems with East’s work were uncovered in September 2009, when a new supervisor found that East had entered into their tracking system just 16 cases in a four-year span. Detectives with similar caseloads had entered more than 1,500 during the same period." That speaks not only to Detective East's diligence, or lack thereof, but the supervisory structure that's supposed to oversee him, which is why it's notable that "Internal affairs cases are pending against one of East’s supervisors" related to the incident.
<snip>
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/

His blog is very enlightening about what goes on in Texas.

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. "That's what happens when it takes a dozen people to collectively make one brain,"

great comment below the story on the blog.

[Odin2005]

32. That blog his HILARIOUS!

[AtomicKitten]

10. 'babysitting while white' ... LOL.

Why is stuff like this not a surprise when it's either Texas or Florida?

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Serious WTF.

Geez, and I thought Austin was the cool part of Texas.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. I remember an article about this happening in England to a white man with a mixed race child

Police were on the look out for pedophiles that preyed on non-white children. He was being racially profiled.

[Glimmer of Hope]

26. Me too! I think most of it is cool.

[joeybee12]

21. Gee, maybe the cops thought the girl looked like she was frightened...

terrified even of this guy..



Come on, this is not a little girl who looks like she doesn't know this guy.

[RZM]

27. This kind of thing happens from time to time

And is of course based on stereotypes. The stereotype being that racial mixing isn't all that common, so when you have an older white man and a younger black girl together, people are more likely to think it's a molestation situation than if the two people are of the same race.

I think the cops often do the same type of thing when they see white people walking through the ghetto. They automatically assume that person is a user looking to a score or a dealer who is 're-upping.' Because according to their thinking, why else would they be there?

[Odin2005]

30. Idiot cops. I have relatives who are half Ojibwe and are very dark.