@MomofJandL “@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.”
I disagree. What Mr. Blow wrote opens a good discussion. Additionally, I see him writing this about his feelings and frustrations as a parent who wants to protect his child. Anyone can understand that feeling.
It is true that drawing a gun is quick, but there is a reason why many police are slow to do it. Once it is drawn, mistakes happen.
I think every single Ivy parent, and a lot of non-Ivy parents, wants to know what the rules of engagement are for campus police pointing a gun at a student leaving the library. If police had reason to believe the perpetrator was armed and dangerous then clearly the officer did the right thing.
As a parent, I think there is value to the discussion about whether the action was warranted, and if so, whether police on campus have a history of drawing on white or asian kids who are suspected of theft too. If they don’t then what was it that made this potential suspect seem particularly dangerous? He was leaving the library for goodness sake, and he was not running. There must be a procedure for stopping and questioning him without the gun being drawn. It is true that an officer never knows what will happen next and without it drawn he is slightly more at risk. However, by that standard they should draw it for traffic stops and in many situations where they do not.
Parents want to know how these incidents are supposed to be handled.
No way in hell. Certainly, I would be civil. No more than that.
They are public servants. They work for me. I am not going to abase myself to prevent a little boy who thinks he’s a big man because he is allowed to carry a gun from assaulting me.
A confounding factor may be that police, like others, may be more on edge in high crime areas. It may also be the case that the perception of crime is higher than actual crime.
I honestly cannot comprehend the lack of empathy and imagination of a person who does not understand why the parent of a black son is terribly upset by his son being held at gunpoint by a police officer. Why this is not a nightmare to them. Seriously?
Maybe it’s the imagination part because based on what we know happened it seems like pretty standard police work. Cops pull their guns out and tell people of all races to stop a lot. They frequently approach basic traffic stops with a hand on the weapon and this was an active search for a very aggressive robber who seemingly totally matched the description of the student all the way down to the hat. Also, Mr. Blow was outraged before this happened. In fact, his job is basically being outraged so that does cause me to have a tempered reaction to still more of his outrage. As someone noted upthread, nothing happened. He wants clicks.
@harvestmoon1, they should not be drawing their weapons unless there is imminent danger that they need to protect themselves from. The situation described and the student who complied with them and did not flee certainly doesn’t meet that criteria.
Also, they are campus police. They are there primarily to protect the students. It must be obvious that any young person they pull over might, just might, be a student and they have an obligation to them. How careless it is to make someone lie face down on the concrete and pull a gun on that person just because they matched a description. The cop did not witness any criminal behavior or suspicious activity by that person and still did that. The cop is AA and has probably suffered the indignities that boolaHI described (when not in uniform) and he still did that.
If it were my child and I was paying tuition to the organization that paid that cop’s salary I would raise holy hell!
Ok, it makes sense if you say every Yale parent, since this incident involved the Yale PD. In what other way would parents be inclined to have different levels of interest because of the athletic league of their kids’ colleges? Would SEC parents expect a different police policy from Big 10 parents?
I can of course understand a parent being upset about his son being held at gunpoint. No one wants that to happen to his son. But given the specific facts stated by the outraged parent, I don’t see profiling. If the student had been stopped and questioned, or held at gunpoint, in the absence of a report of a criminal in the area meeting the same description, I could join in the outrage.
Ok. But despite, probably having a similar education, level of profession, income levels, community involvement, and neighborhoods–my experience in contemporary America is vastly different from the one you enjoy. This is usually derived from me being a large man with dark pigmentation. I will cordially agree to disagree.
How is this different from any other police force? I live in St. Louis County, and I expect the St. Louis County police to protect me. I also expect them to stop me and question me if they get a report of a middle aged mom in a minivan stealing stuff.
About the sir/ma’am discussion. Those of us raised in the south tend to revert to that in times of stress anyway. I sometimes have to remind myself that not everyone considers that respectful.
To me, this incident is not an issue of profiling. Blow said he has no problem with the stop, because his son met the description very closely, down to the clothing.
The problem is the way the stop was conducted. The problem is the drawn gun, and to a lesser extent being forced to lie on the ground. Before, apparently, asking for an id or any conversation.
This is what I would imagine might have happened instead:
Cop hails person meeting the description of a non-violent criminal. Approaches, possibly even with his hand on his gun. Asks for ID. Asks what the person is doing there. Asks the person to remain still for a moment while he checks something out and radios other officers. If the person asks, “What is going on? Why are you stopping me?” explains that there is an incident in progress in the vicinity and requests cooperation. Assuming that the person stopped continues to behave in a non-threatening manner, the gun is never drawn.
I don’t think that Mr. Blow would have written his column if that were what happened.
I do. He’s been writing the basically the same column for years. However, I don’t think we can judge the play-by-play of what happened in the incident since all we have is Mr. Blow’s version and even he wasn’t there. So, I will wait to see what the cop has to say before coming to a conclusion. But right now I don’t see a big issue with what happened.
I don’t think it’s “pretty standard” (as in, normal, sanctioned, basic police behavior) to have a police officer pull a gun on a suspect of a non violent nature (I added this because I realize that even though I’m not exposed to those, they do exist even in my community but just aren’t aware of them. I did hear of someone trying to beat someone else with a metal bar 3 months back and I’m sure there’s more. if there’s a violent crime I understand that the police must be ready to use their gun if necessary.)
It’s definitely not normal police behavior where I live (in fact there’s a whole training about it and a young cop once explained that it’s a dreaded action that no one wants to take and a decision they hope they won’t have to make, but know it’ll happen, if only exceptionally - this young officer struck me - in any case if would not be considered “pretty standard at all”. At all.) I understand it’s pretty standard in some parts of the country and about anywhere for AA young men but reading this as “normal”, basically, is scary to me. What kind of “normal” is this?
I can’t even imagine it but I can totally feel the father’s outrage. I’m glad he wrote what he did, because it doesn’t matter what color the student is: an officer in charge of protecting students pulled a gun on a student who was compliant and had his ID on him.
What I can imagine:
The police would ask for the ID, the ID would be shown. The officer sees this is a student on legitimate business. S/he radios to see if another suspect has been apprehended, if not gives the student’s info, asks whether suspect is thought to be a student. If necessary, the student leaves information with the officer so that he can be recontacted, either as witness or for apprehension. At no point would there be a need to point a gun or make a student lie to the ground.
This sounds to me like an officer who watched too much TV and didn’t get enough training.
I’d be absolutely aghast if a gun was drawn to my child. If an officer is scared to the point they’ll draw a gun on an ID’ed student, they have no business with a gun. A gun is too dangerous to be handled by someone who is either scared or trigger happy.
The stop and verification is normal. The gun isn’t.
As the parent of a Yale-grad daughter who lived on campus all 4 years, I can tell you that I would not. If a male was breaking and entering and stealing stuff from dorms while the students slept, I would want the campus police to be pursuing the perpetrator as aggressively as possible. Whether a student fits the description makes absolutely no difference to how they should be treated by law enforcement. Why should it? Students commit crimes too.
There were 4 locked doors to get to my D’s dorm bedroom: the locked gate into the dorm courtyard, the locked door into the entryway of multiple units where she lived, a locked door into her suite, and then her own bedroom door that locked. (It was like a fortress). Most times I visited her over those 4 years, at least one of those doors was propped open. She always locked her own bedroom door, but she didn’t have 100% control if her roommate came home late and failed to lock it behind her.
I feel I “get” Mr. Blow’s and boolaHI’s concerns over the treatment of Blow, jr., but I also hope they “get” the anxiety the parent of daughters sleeping in high crime areas feel about nighttime intruders into dorm bedrooms. To us, an unharmed suspect matching the description of the perpetrator who had to lay prone before a gun for a minute or two is no more terrifying that the prospect of a stranger entering our daughter’s bedrooms at night.
Btw, I also wonder whether reactions to the scenario are clouded by peoples’ exposure to and prejudices about guns. Those of us who grew up around them may not feel as threatened by a highly trained person using his weapon properly in the course of duties in law enforcement.
@MomofJandL “Would SEC parents expect a different police policy from Big 10 parents?”
I would hope that how these incidents are handled is of concern to SEC and B1G parents, but I suspect that it hits closer to home for parents of students at Ivies, and that they are much more likely to be quizzing their institutions about it. In my state, what happens at Yale seems irrelevant to many. They may not even heard of it and very few would know what state it was in. Few of them read the New York Times, so they probably did not even hear about it.
“If the student had been stopped and questioned, or held at gunpoint, in the absence of a report of a criminal in the area meeting the same description, I could join in the outrage.”
First, I am not outraged. I am concerned. I am not asserting that what happened was wrong. I do not know enough about this subject to make that claim. I do know enough to say that this incident raises some important questions about what the policies and procedures are for when drawing a weapon and aiming it at another person is appropriate. You seem to believe that it was warranted, and you may be right. I don’t know.
Second, if this is within procedural guidelines, is this something that happens consistently in when similar situations arise on campus, or was something different about this situation? If so, what was it? Help everyone understand. Understanding why an action was necessary or that it was a mistake and that officers are being trained in the proper procedure is a step toward citizens trusting the police. The trust of the citizenry is one of the most important tools a police officer can have.
Certainly the parent of the student involved is outraged, and that is understandable, but for many of us it is just an opportunity to better understand what is happening in these situations and ask whether it is possible that there may be a better way to handle it.
This is the point of debate, though. Not everyone thinks pointing a gun at a burglary suspect is proper. If Blow’s son puled a gun on the cop first, you wouldn’t hear anyone complain that the cop’s action was improper.
“Those of us who grew up around them may not feel as threatened by a highly trained person using his weapon properly in the course of duties in law enforcement.”
So you think a lifetime of experience colors the perception of threat? Me too. Growing up without the experience of being a black male tends to make people feel a lot safer around cops and their guns.
Well, I doubt anyone would feel safe with a gun pointed at them. The lesson seems to be comply with the cops and walk away, which as others have said really shouldn’t be news to anyone of any color. Resisting causes problems. I don’t see any reason to be offended because you looked exactly like the suspect. This was felony burglary so I have no idea if the gun being out or not was a problem, but it’s not as though they were searching for a harmless laptop thief, either. He entered people’s bedrooms.