I read this the other day on FB, in case you're struggling to understand what BLM is all about and why so many white people are saying "enough!"
"I will never forget the body cam video I watched of a black man chased by white MPD officers in the middle of the night through backyards and alleyways in N Mpls. He was arrested for obstruction of legal process, or OLP. It was my job as assistant city attorney to decide whether to charge him.
OLP is the catchall "crime" police often charge people with when the person hadn't committed any other crime and had asserted their 4th amendment right--and human instinct--not do be unreasonably seized and detained. In theory it is a tool to ensure peace officers are able to enforce the laws of the state of Minnesota and the United States. In practice on the streets it is without question an instrument of harassment of and state-sponsored discrimination against black citizens. Every person in every case I had carrying a recommended OLP charge was black. I do not recall ever seeing a police officer recommend an OLP charge for a white person. And yet no one I saw poured more vicious, humiliating contempt upon the heads of MPD officers than the white men in business casual they had stopped.
That's only part of the story.
The body cam footage and police report began with a report of "shots fired." The MPD has tech up in N. Mpls. to "hear" gun shots and give them an approximate point of origin. The Officer was in her squad when her camera clicked on. It's the middle of the night--2 or 3am. Radio chatter about the shots fired report. She patrols, spotlight swiveling.
A figure walks, normal paced, out from an alley or yard, it was hard to tell, into the street and illuminated area in front of the squad. Using the squad speaker, the officer orders the figure to stop. The figure stops and turns to look at the officer. He is a black man. Then he sprints across the street.
On the camera audio, the officer swears and her breathing gets heavy and fast. Lots of chatter and clatter now as multiple squads try to track the man's movement. She reorients her squad then jumps out and pursues. More officers are pulled into the chase. She runs down alleys. It is dark. She cuts through yards. You can almost hear her heart pounding.
They corner the man against a garage and carport. His hands are up. The image is burned in me. A lone black man isolated in a search light against a cinderblock wall, surrounded by white police. He is in his neighborhood, where he lives. The officers, statistically speaking, almost certainly all live in the suburbs.
Although cornered, outnumbered and outgunned, the man is defiant, not afraid. Officers move in fast. He does not strike or lash out at any of the officers, but he uses his strength to make it hard for them to bring him to the ground.
They put him on his belly and put his hands behind his back and secure them with handcuffs. They pat him down and find no weapons. They bring him up to his knees.
One of the officers asks: "Why did you run?"
The man looks at the officer incredulously. I can still remember what he said, almost verbatim: "Because I didn't want you to catch me, mother [Poor language removed]. Why do you think? I don't even know what the [Poor language removed] happened. I was just walking in my neighborhood when I see you. I knew if you got your hands on me, I'd be spending the weekend in jail, even though I didn't do nothing. You've done it before. Said I 'looked like the suspect' in a crime I didn't do. I told you it wasn't me. You didn't give a [Poor language removed] then. You took me from my home. You put me in a cell. You made me sit the entire [Poor language removed] weekend in a cage until you had to admit I didn't do anything and had to let me go. [Poor language removed] that. [Poor language removed] y'all. I had a chance to get free. If I could keep you from putting hands on me, I could be in my home. I'll take that chance every motherfucking time. Cause it don't matter if I 'cooperate' or not, if I let you touch me or talk to me, you'll say I'm a suspect and put me in jail either way."
No officer said anything.
He went on. I can't remember the details of what he said. But I remember listening to it over and over and thinking to myself it was like hearing biblical prophecy and biblical judgment. He provided a history of slavery, oppression, and incarceration. And he prophesied it would all end some day.
I dismissed the case. At least one part of the man's prophecy turned out to be absolutely true: He spent two nights in jail for nothing. The OLP charge was added insult and harassment. I had the authority to spare him that. I'm ashamed I didn't do more.
These officers were the "good apples." They didn't murder an innocent man (a woefully low bar for "good"). They were genuinely afraid--at least the officer whose body cam I watched was--I could hear it. The horror movie like footage of running through darkness in pursuit of someone you think might have a gun, not because you have evidence of it, but because you are conditioned to believe it, was scary.
But the whole system is set up to see it from the officers' point of view. They are armed and trained to believe they are at war, that they are occupiers facing an insurgency wearing many disguises, where any black man is a potential ambusher. If Derek Chauvin had been in the group, the man might be dead. Then, if every other past incident besides George Floyd's and Justine Diamond's are a guide, all the footage and officers' testimonials would have been used to convince us the dead man deserved it, or at least that the killers could not be blamed. The good cops would have circled their wagons around the bad.
We don't see or hear the occupied man's point of view. The countless times he has been baselessly deprived of liberty and dignity as he goes about his daily life. The countless times he is forced into moments where his life might be taken by police officers.
That is why people are saying "defund" and "disband" and "rebuild" our whole public safety system. And why I support and lift up their calls."
