Interaction Different with Police based on Race

Great Debates
1

I am really not sure if this would fall under GQ or GD, but since it cannot have a true answer, I decided to go with Great Debates.

This is an event that occurred this past weekend and I wanted to get general thoughts from the SD community. I will warn you it is a rather long post.

I want to be as thorough with the background and scenario as I can to ensure that any thoughts I have missed might be considered.

Friday night at a bit after 10:30pm, I was driving a friend home. We had been to a Christian men’s gathering and as his wife had dropped him off and he lives very close to me, he asked if I could drive him home instead of making his wife drive out so late.

I agreed, it gave us a chance to talk.

We were driving in a 2005 red Ford ranger pickup truck. I was wearing a polo shirt and jeans, he was wearing a button up shirt and slacks. Due to the height of the back of the seats, all that would have been able to be determined from behind was that two people were in the truck. We were in a different county than where my truck is tagged (the county line where it is tagged is less than two miles from that spot, but still a different county)/

We were not in anywhere near a bar or any restaurant that might serve alcohol. In fact, most any business other than the convenience store was shut down at this time.

I had my window down as it was a nice evening and we were just talking about the gathering we had just left.

We left the church which is roughly 3 miles from his house. We were less than a half mile from the church, when we got pulled over. I am not sure if the police officer had been sitting in a parking lot on the side of the road where we were traveling, or if he had pulled in behind us shortly after we turned onto the main road.

I had stopped at a traffic light and as the light turned green and I started to proceed, the blue lights came on. I turned into an empty business parking lot and waited for the officer.

The police officer pulled in behind us. I knew the drill and I placed my hands on the steering wheel in full sight and waited to be approached. I knew he/she was running the tag and knew there would be no issues. My friend is an African American and I am a white male. My friend adopted the posture of putting his hands up open facing outward. I thought about telling him to relax, but I would not presume to tell another adult what they should be doing during a stop as long as it was not something that might be seen as threatening.

So far, everything seemed fairly routine. I had told me buddy that I had no idea what I had done wrong. I was not speeding, had stopped at the right place for the light, so was just speculating on what might be the issue.

The rest of the situation is what I am curious as to the thoughts from the board.

The officer approached on the passenger side. I have been pulled over for speeding and such numerous times, and this did seem odd to me. The officer tapped his flashlight on the window and asked my buddy to roll down the window. My buddy was not familiar with my truck and asked me how (it is an older manual window, so no rolling it down for him). While I was giving him this instruction, the officer asked my buddy why his hands were up and my friend replied that he just wanted to make sure there was no issue with what he was doing. The officer instructed him to put his hands down and act normal. My friend told the officer he was rolling down the window and the officer asked him why he was making an issue out of something that did not need to be an issue.

Now, all of this is odd to me. I get that him having his hands up might seem peculiar, but he was definitely in a defenseless position. The officer informed us that the lights for the tag area was out and that was why he had pulled us over. He asked for my license, which I pulled out of my back pocket and gave him. Then he asked my buddy if he had his license. My friend said he did. Then he asked my friend to step out of the truck. He kept asking my buddy why he was making the stop into a bigger issue than it needed to be. That he recognized that all the stuff going on in the US and that my friend being a black man and him being a white cop, but there was no need to act like the cop was going to harm him. He kept asking why was he (my buddy) acting weird. He said, I assume you do not have a gun, then he said “You don’t have a gun do you?” My friend replied no, he did not have a gun. The the officer said "I am guessing your license is in your back pocket, that is where I keep mine, so go ahead and get it. Basically, he seemed to be indicating that he knew my friend was not doing anything wrong or malicious.

My friend gave him his license and then at the officer’s request, sat back down in the truck.

The officer left and I assume ran the licenses and then when he came back started talking about he pulled us over because there had been numerous people that had tried to obstruct their license plates and we seemed to be upstanding men and that the only way to improve things between black men and white cops was to have reasonable encounters when a stop is made. He told my friend he wanted to just introduce himself and shake my friends hand and we were free to go on our way. Just that I should get the lights for the tag fixed.

Now, everything from the point in which he came up was weird. And yes, the lights were out, I checked when I got home.

I have never been approached on the passenger side. I have never been asked about having a gun (and he did not ask me in this exchange). I have never been asked to get out of the car.

I can see as a white guy that has NEVER been afraid of getting shot during a routine stop, that my friend’s behavior did seem odd. But from his point of view, having his hands up in a defenseless position was the most reasonable way to handle it.

I could see that maybe he thought my friend had been drinking or on something to be acting so weird and maybe that is why he asked him to get out of the car. But even if he had been drinking, I was driving, so if I were driving him home as the DD, that is what they would want. At no point did he come talk to me face to face or anything other than across the seat where my buddy was sitting.

It was clear he had not been drinking or smoking or high.

Of course, telling a nervous, or agitated, or excited person to relax never works.

So from a privileged white guy perspective, that was an odd stop. I can never know if my friend had not put his hands up in that manner if the stop would have gone differently or not. I do believe that the police officer made the issue larger than what was necessary by telling my buddy to calm down and all that (at no point was my buddy showing any agitation, the only thing he did was put his hands up and move very slowly telling the officer what he was doing the entire time).

I am not sure if it had just been me driving if I would have gotten pulled over. I am not sure if we got pulled over because it was a white guy and a black guy driving along late at night. I don’t know if he thought we might be drinking. We are middle aged guys (mid 40s) so not like we look like we are up to something.

So, it is possible he pulled us over because of my friend being in the truck and maybe he just used the tag lights to have a “reason” (we only got a verbal warning). And then when he saw we were not up to anything and due to my buddy’s reaction, decided that he probably should smooth it over (and maybe that is why we did not get a written warning so we would not have his name and badge number to file a complaint).

Anything I might have missed? Did a privileged white guy get a glimpse into the everyday life of a black man?

I am having a difficult time processing this and so I am hoping for some unbiased insights from this community.

2

I think that is what you got a glimpse into, yes.

The only thing I really have to add is that I think your story is a perfect illustration of why it’s not productive to talk about being “colorblind” or “getting past race” either personally or as a society.

It may very well be that from the officer’s perspective, he was just conducting a routine traffic stop and some black guy assumed that he was a racist cop and made everything more difficult. That might really be what he experienced. I think it’s fair to assume that whatever he experienced, none of what he thinks he experienced was him treating your friend differently because he’s black. And if you hadn’t been there, depending on which one of them you’d talked to, it would have been impossible for you to say whether the officer or your friend was the one who made it weird, so to speak. The truth is, I think, that it was out of each of their hands, to some extent. Your friend is never going to just act “normal,” because he could get killed for doing things that you might normally do during a traffic stop. It happens. So he acts nervous and weird, because he is nervous, and he has to somehow communicate the absence of a threat that actually doesn’t exist.

Meanwhile, the cop is observing this, and he’s thinking, well, why doesn’t this guy act normal, I’m not a racist, why is this guy treating me like a racist. So he escalates it. Now he’s hypersensitive to how the guy’s responding to him, and he starts directing him to stop acting weird. Which is exactly the kind of thing your friend’s afraid of! As you’re watching, you see that OK, he’s acting differently from me, but you also see the cop treating him differently from how he’d treat you. Neither of them had access to your perspective, and I don’t think either of them even can access it, because how that interaction felt to them is a real thing, too. And can you imagine if you had also been black, and if you had given voice to the impression you were getting that the officer was treating your friend differently because he is black?

I think it’s just inevitably true, because of what we are and where we are as a society, that the whole interaction is going to be fraught with racial tension before there’s any contact between the two of them. It’s just floating out there, and they both know it, and it affects both of them. It’s a worthless fantasy to say that what should happen is the cop should treat your friend like he’d treat a white guy, and your friend should be able to and should just act normal, just like a white guy would be able to do. Neither of them can do that. Your friend doesn’t want to die over nothing. And the cop is just never going to not notice the race of the person he’s interacting with. There’s a difference. It’s actually almost the best case scenario, unfortunately*, that under the circumstances the officer babbles a bit about racial harmony and how everything should be OK.

  • it’s not actually the best case scenario. But given the obvious tension that existed, we’ll have to take it, I think.
3

I’m a white dude (well, I look like one at least).

I’ve been approached on both the driver and passenger side. That would be normal for me.

I’ve been asked for my license and had it run. That seems normal for both of us.

I’ve been asked if I was drinking and I’ve also been asked if I had a gun. That’s annoying but also normal.

I’ve never been asked to get out of the car though. That would be weird for me but I’ve seen enough episodes of COPS to know it’s not all that bizarre.

I would have thought putting your hands on your knees as the passenger would have been the non-threatening thing (and non-weird) thing to do, but I don’t think your friend did anything wrong. I’m not sure the cop did anything wrong by commenting on it because it is pretty weird. Bad idea to tell him to stop though.

4

I’m white and I’ve had all three of these things happen to me.

The reality is that, on average, cops are going to be more on edge and perceive someone as more of a threat when dealing with:
males vs females (probably moreso when dealing with groups of men vs groups of women or families)
teens & young adults vs older folks
strong / fit / muscular person vs an out-of-shape / disabled person
minorities vs whites
casually-dressed vs professionally-dressed
whoever they pull over late at night vs a daylight-hours stop
stops made in bad neighborhoods vs generally safe parts of town

sounds like you and your friend had a couple of strikes against you on the putting-the-officer-at-ease scale.

5

I’m white and have had an officer come to the passenger side.

6

I don’t think it was your buddy that was acting weird, or making the stop a bigger issue than it needed to be.

7

Yes, just judging by your account, it would seem to me that this interaction was colored by race. I guess I am just surprised that it takes being personally present for such an event for some people to believe this kind of thing happens all the time. And to be honest, what you saw was a relatively benign case of this sort of thing.

Can I ask why you were surprised given we have reams of empirical evidence on this, even more anecdotal evidence, and accounts from people of all political stripes. Even Black republican senators get profiled. Senator Scott was killed over 7 times in one year. Why dont people take all this evidence at face value?

8

For some reason I think you meant something different than what you wrote.

9

:eek: That poor man. That sounds like a TERRIBLE year.

10

Well, to be fair, some things are just really hard to believe.

Do the cops even have a right to demand a to see a driver’s license from someone who isn’t driving? Granted, from the wording in the OP, the cop didn’t actually start out “demanding”–he asked the passenger if he had his license, so presumably the answer could have been “no” (and then what?); but what if the answer is “yes”, followed by: “…so go ahead and get it.” “Sir, respectfully, I’m not driving, so I don’t think I have to show you my driver’s license.” (Depending on state law, I believe there are SCOTUS rulings that may imply a legal duty to identify oneself under some circumstances, so this polite refusal might need to be followed by “My name is [John Doe], my birthday is [January 1, 1980] and I live at [123 Elm Street].”)

It’s totally understandable that the OP’s (already clearly very nervous and just wanting to not get shot tonight) friend didn’t feel like asserting his rights. But it’s a damn shame that police officers aren’t trained to be more respectful of the legal rights of the people they supposedly are “protecting and serving”–in a whole hell of a lot of ways, of which demanding to see people’s “papers” for no good reason during routine traffic stops are only one very minor part–instead of putting the burden entirely on nervous or even outright scared ordinary people who just want to not get pepper-sprayed, arrested, or possibly killed, even if years later some court rules that actually, they were fully within their rights that night.

11

One idea I’d like to see removed is the idea that nervousness means anything unusual. Of course you’re going to be nervous around a cop. Cops should be trained in how to recognize nervousness.

I’d actually be okay with them reducing it. I really don’t agree with the idea that scaring people is a good thing. The only fear they should have is that illegal actions will lead to consequences. But that should be a fear at all times. It should not need to increase because the cop is present.

So I’m all for reassurances and making people think of a cop as friendly. I especialyl think this needs to be done with populations that are more nervous around the police. Pushing fear makes you the enemy.

12

your buddy acted suspicious and the cop was acting weird.

you probably got pulled over on a fishing expedition for drunks. Believe it or not they have been known to drive on roads without a bar nearby.

Officers walk up to both sides of the car so that’s not unusual. This is why I drop all windows in a car with electric windows. I also turn the dome light on at night and throw the keys on the dash. I have a gun license so that’s the first thing out of my mouth.

13

Absolutely. But it sounds like this cop did a pretty lousy job of that, even if that may have been (at least in part) what he was trying to do.

“Sir, is there a reason why you have your hands in the air?”
“I just want to make sure there’s no issue with what I’m doing, Officer.”
“OK. Well, thanks, but you can just put your hands down now, and just don’t make any sudden movements or anything. I’m going to go around and ask for your friend’s license–actually, I just pulled him over because his license tag light is out is all.”

14

How did his buddy act suspicious?

15

This sounds like the cop being kind of a dick to me.

I’ve heard from plenty of people that you should always make sure that your hands are visible and clearly not going for any concealed area when a cop approaches, and to tell the officer what you’re doing before you do it.

The officer could have laughed it off to try to put your hands at ease “Ha, no need to put your hands up, I just want to ask you a few questions.” But instead he decided to with questionable commands “act normal”, and to escalate a potential conflict by accusing your friend of “making an issue out of something”.

Coming up on the passenger side is pretty common. It puts the officer in a position that’s much safer with respect to getting hit by traffic. Generally, if they ask you to get out of the car, they’ll bring you over to the shoulder, not in front of either car, since pulled-over cars get rear-ended by people not paying much attention all the time.

16

I was willing to give the cop the benefit of the doubt until he asked the friend to get out of the car. That smells fishing expedition and “let me fuck with this guy until I find an offense to nail him on or until he loses his cool and I can arrest him resisting arrest”.

He used the buddy’s nervousness as justification for asking to see his license. And the thing is, he correctly assessed the dude was only nervous because current events, so it’s not like he really believed he was sweating because he had a pound of coke shoved up his ass or something. A good cop would have respected the guy’s dignity enough not to pluck his strings further. The tag light was out; why not just focus on that and let the citizens be on their way?

This is the kind of BS that cops need to be trained against doing.

17

Approaching from the passenger side supposedly makes it safer for the officer – i.e. harder for somebody to shoot him.

18

:smack: Yes, I meant pulled over. He has not been killed to my knowledge.

19

I’m sure it happens at time, but the idea that someone could be arrested solely for resisting arrest is utter bullshit.

20

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies.

To one of the posters earlier. I understand what you are saying in terms of why was it surprising given the evidence.

But while I previously believed that it happened, it is quite another thing to experience it.

Kind of like I can believe people when they tell me how something looks or smells or tastes or feels, but until I experience it, it is not the same.

I get that entering at the passenger side is not completely uncommon, it just was for me.

I do think the cop was fishing for drunk drivers and such, and that is why when my buddy was displaying what the copy referred to as “making an issue out of nothing” decided to have him get out of the truck to see if he acted intoxicated, if he had smelled alcohol, he probably would have come to my side of the truck. But since my friend was stone cold sober, I assumed he went with it was very unlikely that I had been drinking either.

I think the first reply really hit on the situation that my friend was acting in a manner to stay alive. Maybe he was never in danger, but as a family man, better safe than sorry. And the officer probably felt that he was not trusted by my friend, so tried to diffuse the situation, he seemed fairly young, so maybe the officer was inexperienced.

Again, thanks to all who responded.

I hate that my friend was put through this, but it definitely gave me a more real perspective of what that aspect of life is like for him.