As a journalist whose late father was an FBI agent, I’ve covered police and crime for years and understand the difficult circumstances officers face.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t criticized some who went overboard, such as the Los Angeles International Airport officer who strip-searched me in 1988 after wrongly suspecting I possessed drugs. That incident and others resulted in me joining the ACLU and becoming a board member of the Dallas chapter.
Recently, my 18-year-old son told me of an incident that occurred to him and two African-American friends around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2018. It’s more troubling than being strip-searched while trying to make a connecting flight. Much more.
My son — who is white — and his friends were out that evening driving around a popular entertainment and shopping center near our suburban Washington, D.C., home. A police car stopped them. Soon, other squad cars arrived. Officers told them to get out of the vehicle without saying why they were stopped. The officers searched my son, his friends and the car without telling them why. They consented to the search of their bodies and vehicle, and didn’t make any sudden moves. Not finding anything illegal, the officers sent them on their way.
They didn’t commit a traffic offense. They didn’t have an expired registration or light out. My son’s friends could only conclude that they were stopped for a DWB — Driving While Black. In my son’s case, there is a twist to this age-old phenomena — he was stopped for Driving With Blacks. That may be a new one.
I knew my son and his friends were more fortunate than some. Luckier than Michael Brown. Or Freddie Gray. Or Tamir Rice. Or Eric Garner. Or Sandra Bland. Or many others.
“I don’t like the police,” my son admitted. It was the first time I had heard such a negative reaction from him towards police, as I remembered taking his Scout den to visit police stations. My son played varsity football, ran track and was a leader in his church youth groups and school organizations. I’ve met his friends, and they are polite, decent teens. His admission threw me.
“They stopped us just because I was a white guy out with some black guys,” my son continued. “They thought I was buying drugs.” He described how they were about to pick up some other African-American friends when they were stopped. “It’s a good thing we didn’t [pick up them before].”
I tried to tell him not to stereotype officers as they did him and his friends, that there are many more good cops than bad. But my words rang hollow. My son has been out with white friends numerous times without being stopped and searched in such a manner. The one time he was stopped with a white friend for a brake light being out, the officers let them go with a warning and no search. He knows something is not right in this equation.
[rest of the story is here]