Thinking of SANDRA (#SayHerName)
Thinking of SANDRA
“Well, if you don’t want a negative interaction with the
police don’t do anything criminal.”
Every time I hear
or see this statement I roll my eyes to the back of my head and count to ten
before I snap. Some people really think it’s that easy to avoid adverse
reactions with the police and yes, for some people it is.
As I look at the video of Sandra
Bland’s arrest I think back to the summer of 2013 and my own negative
interaction with the police. I attended college in a rural and some would say
desolate corner of North Carolina that borders the Hampton Roads area of
Virginia. Often times when I needed certain items I would have to travel to
nearby Chesapeake, VA to get them.
One evening I was traveling down the
isolated stretch of highway that takes you to Virginia when I was pulled over
in Camden County, NC. I was driving through a 60 going 62 so when the cop’s car
zoomed up behind me I thought it was a mistake or I was in his way. As my heart
beat out of my chest the officer approached my vehicle. Mind you, I had never
been pulled over a day in my life.
I asked what the problem was he
refused to answer. He just said I’ll let you know I need to see your license
and registration. I was so nervous it took for what seemed like an eternity to
locate my driver’s license. Finally I found the proper documents and gave them
to the officer. When I looked back into the my review I saw that not one, not
two but three additional cop cars (including a K9 unit) had joined him. My mind
raced a mile a minute. The K9 walked around my car and left. After detaining me
on the side of the road for 10 minutes as passer-bys rubbernecked to see what
was going. I’m sure if I would have passed by a car surrounded by four cop cars
I would have rubbernecked to at such a spectable (I mean c’mon if that many
cops are on the scene they had to have done “something”).
The officer finally let me go after
the 10 minutes with no explanation about why I had been pulled in the first
place. I was pissed and confused because I knew I had done nothing wrong. But I
knew the situation could’ve ended so much worse. I could’ve ended up locked up
on trumped up charges. I could’ve ended up dead because the officer feared for their lives. I always wonder
how the situation would have played out if a male friend were on the car, a
black male friend. Would they have asked to search the car? Would they have harassed
him?
We’ve seen the narrative played out
time and time again. But I have said all of that to say this not all negative
interactions between police and citizens are because that person did something
wrong. Some police do abuse their power and go out of their way to make the
life of citizens harder. And they can do this with impunity.
I could’ve been Sandra Bland. This
woman had her life ahead of her and it ended in a cold, isolated jail cell with
more questions than answers.
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