This one, if you can believe it, involves a black man who was merely picking up trash on his own property using a clamp designed for that purpose. Such items are commonly used to avoid bending down and using one’s hands pick up trash. But he was accosted by a police officer who drew his gun and other police soon swarmed to the scene.
Police in the US state of Colorado have launched an internal probe after an officer detained a black man holding a rubbish picker in front of his building, US reports say.
Footage showed the man asking an officer why he had drawn his gun.
…Several more officers attended the scene before they determined that the man had a legal right to be on the property and took no further action, a police statement said.
During the incident the man gave officers his university ID and said repeatedly that he lived and worked at the shared occupancy building.
One of the officers has been placed on leave while the investigation takes place, the New York Times reported.
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The man (as well as the person taking the video) was rightly angry about the way he was being treated and defiant and I am thankful that he was not shot for ‘resisting arrest’.
And some people wonder why the black community does not trust the police.
There are some things I get. Late at night, hunched over, hands in pockets, wearing a hoodie with the hood up, I can see how a racist mind feels that looks suspicious. It’s bullshit, but I get it.
I literally cannot comprehend how picking up trash on a fucking lawn, one of the most mundane and innocuous domestic activities imaginable, would not only register as suspicious but dangerous enough to be worth drawing a gun. I just cannot turn my internal racism dial up high enough for that, it is so far beyond my comprehension. Literally inconceivable.
From the police report, it sounds like it’s even worse than that. According to the officer, the man was sitting on his patio behind a “Private Property” sign, which naturally, seeing as how he was sitting while Black, and because “Private Property” signs are intended to ward off Black people, was suspicious, and so the officer approached him. It’s not clear to me how they got from him sitting on his patio, to holding the trash claw with a bag over his shoulder, but standing up after sitting is clearly threatening behavior, and so of course the officer, fearing for his life, drew his weapon.
Nothing to see here, no reprimands will be necessary. /s
Let’s face it. The only suprising thing here is that he wasn’t shot dead.
Well I hope the black guy learned his lesson: don’t try to improve your neighborhood.
It’s high time we brought an end to the scourge of …civic minded, responsible, tidy black people!
I saw a slightly different version of this in which the audio was more intelligible. It’s clear from that that even after the person has stated out loud that he lives there, and that he is picking up trash, and has no gun, the officer continues to demand that he drop the weapon. Eventually the cop demands that he drop the “object” which he presumably still considers a danger even though he can’t figure out what it is or what it might do from behind the fence. Aside from all else, I think we’re seeing the degree to which police, once they lock into a course of action, have a hard time separating from it. I suppose it happens to all of us at times, but here we see the clouding of judgment by supposition in a dramatic way.