@oldmom4896
Because Yale is no different than Harvard, USC, Columbia, Temple, Penn, Tulane, Chicago, Duke, and many many other schools in this regard, potentially. The problem isn’t the school itself, the problem is how to best handle these kinds of situations both at universities and in the general population.
Why do we have so many terrified police officers these days? I’ve worked with solid police officers in times past and I can’t think of any one of them whom were ‘terrified’ on the job. Perhaps those that are regularly frightened need to find another profession, which was the recommendation regarding the cop in Cleveland who rashly fired and killed the innocent 12-year old boy.
@LakeWashington
Perhaps it is because the number of guns in the hands of criminals continues to rise, as does the number of police officers killed in the line of duty. http://www.poam.net/current-events/2015/number-police-officers-killed-job-climbs/
@Bay “campus police ought to be numerous and carry weapons, that someone breaking and entering dorms and stealing students’ stuff while they sleep should be hunted down with weapon drawn. That is what would make me feel safe, not the campus police holding back, being polite and endangering themselves out of concern over offending someone’s race.”
If that is the standard procedure when the suspect is White or Asian then I think that is fine.
officers are responsible for everything they do and should be held accountable.
If someone is pointing a gun at you, the safest thing to do is exactly what you are told and nothing else. This seems very logical and clear cut to me.
If a Yale student ID on Yale campus does not convince a Yale police officer that the person is a genuine Yale student, then what is the use of Yale IDs?
“officers are responsible for everything they do and should be held accountable”
That is the theory, but it isn’t happening. Once the gun is drawn and the officer says he saw something suspicious, then the burden of proof is very high to even charge an officer, let alone get a conviction.
you got out of the car without being told to do so?!?!?!?! geez
I grew up in arguably the richest county (not comparable to the richest zip codes) in the country and am white. How have I ended up with more police “common sense” than so many of the people in this thread. This is very surprising to me and I have perhaps taken this for granted.
You should also always answer the police “yes sir/ma’am, no sir/ma’am” or “yes officer, no officer” respectfully and in a calm voice.
@ruar12
It isn’t that he wasn’t convinced he was a Yale student. Being a Yale student doesn’t eliminate the possibility of being a thief, just like it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of being a drug dealer, or a rapist, or any number of other illegal behaviors.
Killed in the line of duty is mostly car accidents.
The very first time I got pulled over. I have been pulled over many times since in the last 25 years.
I would never get out of a car if being pulled over. My FIL was an ob-GYN running to an urgent delivery, got pulled over for speeding and in an attempt to impress upon the officer that he was needed in an emergency, got out of the car. The officer pulled a gun on him, and he was about as white/middle-aged/unthreatening as can be. (The coda is that the officer called the hospital to verify, a nurse screamed at him “we need Dr X here immediately!” and he got a police escort to the hospital!)
I got lucky. The officer was still in the car and told me to get back in the car through the speaker. So no guns drawn.
I would feel differently about this incident if Blow bore no resemblance to the suspect. But he was both wearing clothes of the same description and was in the same general area as the reported perpetrator, so there isn’t any issue to me about racism here.
There is much made about the fact that the officer drew his weapon when approaching Blow, but to me that is insignificant, especially because of the nature of the alleged crime, but also because the officer could have easily drawn and fired his weapon if and when Blow made a threatening move if it had not already been unholstered and pointed at Blow. It doesn’t take much more time to draw and fire than just fire. And having a loaded gun pointed at you would make most people more cautious about their movements, and possibly less apt to be fired upon.
Without the drama of speaking from my personal soapbox, being a man of color, and a large one at that, I have experienced a lifetime of indignations and sclerotic encounters from law enforcement. Except for the occasion, in graduate school, where I was actually inhaling in the backyard of a faculty BBQ, I count no less then 2 dozen times where I was either pulled over, stopped at my own residences, pulled out of movie lines, and questioned in stores.
Lest you think I’m a vagrant–I’m not. Nor were these regional specific episodes, occurring in a wide variety of places (e.g. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Boston, etc…) In some instances, the police were cordial and apologetic, in others terse and non-sensical (e.g “stay out of these neighborhoods”–you mean the one I live in??) These experiences jade you to the point of paranoia. So, excuse me, if I take some of these anecdotal comments listed-above with a modicum of exasperation and resent. Just follow the officers orders or I have never had such a problem…please.
To a certain degree, I’m relived I don’t have a son. My daughter attends the aforementioned institution, and has never experienced what I have described. She is also a female and much more fair skinned. Sometimes, the daily world for a man of color is a continual exercise questioning of where you belong in society and what, if any, have you done wrong. Make no mistake about it, I’m blessed, several graduate degrees, appointments at Ivies, a beautiful and supportive doctor for a wife, an incredibly and responsible daughter, but despite all that–what most people see on a daily basis, is a menacing large person of color.
@boolaH!, the kinds of experiences you describe are the reason it was counter-productive for Charles Snow to get on his personal soapbox about this particular incident. If you have 20 encounters with the police, and 19 of them are somewhere between completely unjustified and marginally justified, it doesn’t make sense to make a stink about one that seems pretty reasonable.
Again, the only “facts” I have heard about the case came from a column written by an outraged parent, but it sounds like a crime was reported, the thief’s description was communicated to YPD officers, and an officer stopped an individual that met that description, and then released that individual with no injuries, no arrest, no charges. We can have a discussion about whether the gun should have been drawn, but that’s about the only controversy.
Trying to get people who generally appreciate the service of police officers to get upset about this case is a loser from the start, unless a completely different set of facts emerges. Trying to get a lot of hits on the NYT web site to increase your negotiation leverage when syndication fees are discussed might be a different matter, so maybe I should re-evaluate his goal in writing about this.
My intent was not specifically aimed at the relevance nor the legitimacy of the specific incidence, but rather to inform many who think this is an aberration, or an isolation of a potentially over zealous police officer. Fact is, and data and statistics confirm this assertion, that this is an all too prevalent occurrence for men of color.
@momofjandl wrote
It makes complete sense to me to make a fuss if my innocent child’s life has been endangered by an overzealous cop pulling a gun on them - for any damn reason.
If I didn’t have a personal soapbox to get on, I would still do my best to get the story out there so that the cops would be embarrassed enough to change their policy in those situations and so that other people would be aware of the abuse of power that could be going on.
Would anyone care if the suspect was white? I wouldn’t. And, I do think that cops chasing robbery suspects have been known to unholster their weapons. Nothing happened here. And, a policy where cops cannot take out their guns makes no sense at all. I will be interested to see what the investigation reveals, if anything.
But what should that policy be changed to greenwitch? To not stop someone who fits the description of a suspect who is in the general area of where the crime occurred? The drawing of the gun is probably something they are trained to do in certain circumstances.