Do you personally know a police officer who arrested someone because of race? If so, what happened?

Well here’s a topic not fraught with landmines. Let me just strap on a big o’ pair of snowshoes and jump right in!

I had a rather unusual situation once as a Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) security guard that, in an odd way, may have been racial. It certainly was improper.

MPHA had its own security patrol (Housing Patrol) who were city employees and mustered with the police at the beginning and end of their shifts; even had police issued radios. In several of the MPHA complexes there were contract guards—such as myself—to provide direct security to those buildings. Housing Patrol and us contract security guards often worked together and had a generally good relationship for the most part. There was one day when I had to break up a fight between my partner and a guy from HP, but as entertaining as that was, it was not the norm.

One quiet night, back in 1991 or 1992, a Housing Patrol officer was hanging out at my building just BSing with me. As we were gabbing, a call comes over his radio about a car thief who ditched his joy-ride a couple blocks over from our building, and was on foot heading our way. The Housing officer and myself concealed ourselves and laid in wait for the thief in case he crossed our property.

He did.

We nabbed him, I cuffed him, and the Housing officer called the pursuing cop to let him know we had his crook. Soon enough Minneapolis’ finest arrived, and that’s where the “unpleasant” began.

To help understand some of the legal, racial, and real world dynamics playing in the background that evening, understand the following: It was the era of Rodney King, Reginald Denny and riots. Minneapolis’s crime rate, while not as bad as other big cities in the 90’s, was high enough to warrant the unfortunate nickname “Murderapolis”. The neighborhood I worked in was predominantly black. The suspect was black. The Housing officer was black. The cop was black. Mine was the only white face in the picture.

The cop was talking with the young suspect who had little to say as far as I remember. The Housing officer and I were standing close by, listening and watching the parking lot interrogation, waiting for these folks to clear our property so we could writ up a brief report and call it good. Once I got my cuffs back, we could put this minor drama to rest and move on to the next drama.

Then it happened.

BAM!

“You dented Mr. Hood,” the cop said after he had grabbed the thief by the scruff of his neck and slammed him face-first onto the hood of the squad car.

With little pause, the cop, his iron grip firmly clamped to the man’s neck, slammed him once again onto the car hood.

BAM!

This beefy policeman swung the suspect around like a rag doll. “Rag doll” may be a bit cliché, but a rag doll is precisely what the suspect resembled. He was clearly dazed, and limp enough that he wouldn’t have been unable to stand up on his own.

“Why did you dent Mr. Hood again,” he disingenuously asked. “Stop hurting Mr. Hood.”

But “he” didn’t stop pounding on Mr. Hood. The cop made introductions between Mr. Hood and the suspect three or four more times. I remember a smattering of splattered blood was visible on the white face of Mr. Hood; not a lot, but it was there.

The suspect never put up a fight, but if he had been of a mind to before—surrounded as he was by three big dudes AND handcuffed—there was no longer any fight left in him. There was barely any consciousness left in him.

I had been looking at the Housing officer throughout this event hoping for a look of guidance, some measure of psychically conveyed wisdom. Something. Anything. The look he returned was as if to say “Ain’t our business. We see nothing.” I just wanted to get my cuffs and get the hell out of there, the whole time wondering if the building’s security cameras were catching this.

Soon enough the cop put the suspect in the squad car, gave me a pair of his handcuffs in exchange for mine, and drove off. We were left with the competing theories given to me by the Housing Patrol officer who speculated it was either a case of the “contempt of cop”, meaning the police officer was angry at the guy for running or--and now it gets VERY touchy and speculative—the cop was mad because this young black man he felt made black people “look bad”.

It wasn’t my theory. I’m just relaying the thought I was given.

And if you’re wondering, the answer is: Hell no, I didn’t do a damn thing about what when down that night. I was this 18 or 19 year old, easily replaceable, $6 an hour public housing contract security guard. I don’t remember what exactly I did write in my report but it wouldn’t have included the full truth. And even if I had been completely candid, I doubt it would have made much difference beyond spotlighting myself.

So did I witness a cop beating on a guy because he was black? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the officer was just a hard-ass. I don’t even pretend to know the "whys", but I do know enough to know it's not a simple Black & White issue. Pun intended.

Usually the only racial aspect to an arrest in my experience was basic stupid behavior on the part of suspects who refused to go along with the Officer's directions and or becoming violent for no rational reason.
They do not seem to understand that the officer with the Badge cannot back down and the issue is just going to get worse thanks to his behavior.

You are opening a can of worms, Sir.
Does this happen? Yes. That is not always the case. It's not always race, it's demographics. If the police are in a predominantly black neighborhood, most of the contact will be with POC. In a black neighborhood, a white guy driving a round would draw attention. Sometimes when a minority gets pulled over, be it Balck, Latino or otherwise, if they know they have something they shouldn't have, they throw the race card out there or start with the" I pay your salary" remarks. A simple stop, cracked windshield, broken taillight, failure to signal can lead to bigger things. Maybe the driver has a warrant, suspended license, is impaired, has drugs, just committed a crime, is there a gun in the car, the car may be stolen. Who knows. So try this, when a cop pulls you over, even if you don't agree with the stop,keep your hands on the wheel, provide your ID or license, registration and proof of insurance, take the ticket then fight it in traffic court.

i've never accually heard for any one who has arested just because of race generally you have to be doing something illegal to even get questioned by an officer but then how can you have a positive experince when they have cause (weithr it turns out to be founded or not) to think you have broken the law

As a former police officer I never witnessed anything of the sort while I was on the job. If a substantialatted complaint was made it would be grounds for firing. The vast majority of our officers were veterans. We practiced "Community Policing" long before it had a name.

When i was younger i was or I thought i was. When your own race do dumb things and keep the stereo type going, its hard for the good guys not to get pulled over or arrested by the police.

CPT (Join to see) Your entire premise is predicated on a false set of conditions sir. Respectfully I urge you to drop this matter.

I have fortunately never been arrested. I am Shoshone Bannock. I have been stopped numerous times where I live yet only have one ticket in my life. I do not know for sure the reason I have been stopped by police officer so I take their word for it. It is because my license plate light is too dim or tail light is out but came back on after they pulled me over or my registration's description of my vehicle did not match the color of my vehicle. These are the reasons the Police have came up with to stop me. I am not saying it is race at least one of the times I was driving slower than the posted speed limit at the time bars close so I assume that the officer thought I was drunk and pulled the registration thing just to have a reason to pull me over. I am usually very cooperative but do not consent to searches or anything else. For the most part Police a great people. I work with them everyday and that might be why I don't get pulled over as often anymore. It is definitely hard to determine a police officer stopped you because of race, but it is even more difficult to prove someone was arrested because of race. We all must remember the vast majority of law enforcement are outstanding citizens and just like any group of people there are not so good ones.

No I have never seen an arrest for anything other than 1 reason.... they broke the law. Because they were an asshole it didn't help their situation. But lets face the facts, lets all agree that its not possible to be arrested for anything other than breaking the law. To arrest someone because of their color is a major civil rights violation. What could you possible charge them with?

Ok, so the cop haters must be claiming that charges are made up just to arrest a person of color..... While I'm sure there are some bad cops and some raciest cops, it has to be such a small % its not worth discussing. However we are discussing it so here is my experience. When I was on the job I knew about a half dozen raciest cops. Each and every one of them avoided minorities whenever they could. My believe is more minorities got away because of this. Those cops just didn't want to speak with them or deal with them if they didn't have to. If they did have to they were very cordial because they just wanted the interaction to be over with. By the way, I don't know any raciest people that are raciest against one group of people. If your raciest your raciest. It doesn't matter if your white or a minority yourself. This nonsense that only white people are raciest is absolutely disgusting. Only a raciest would ever say such a thing.

Lastly, I've heard a lot lately about blacks claiming that you can only be raciest if your a color in power. Ok, so then who is the president of the united states? Seems like a person in power..... BTW this president is as raciest as JFK was.... The vast majority of Americans couldn't care less about color. What we care about is everyone following the same rules. We also shouldn't confuse profiling with racism. OMG I could discuss this topic for weeks just talking about the idiots on TV/News.

As far as this graph below, first off how do you know others who witnessed race as a primary factor? Because they told you, right? Those that witnessed isolated incidents that could have been race driven... Hmm, lets say 2 men rob a liquor store separately at 2 different stores and they are both caught. They are both arrested. One is white and one is black. Could the black male have been arrested with race being a primary factor? haha, its just sickening to hear this crap. And who are the people here voting saying they have witnessed multiple occasions of people being arrested and race was a primary reason for the arrest? Your either lying to promote this cause or your a criminal yourself. I guess you could be a police officer and thats why your around so many arrests... but then you should be reporting this to your superiors and doing something about it. But that might account for one or two of you, but not 15% (the poll shows at the time of my post). The whole national discussion on this is so dishonest.

No hate posts needed to me, I'm sure to many of you I must be raciest to make the comments that I have made. I must be raciest because I want people to come to America through the proper legal way. I must be raciest because I want any law abiding citizen to be able to defend themselves with a firearm if they are attacked or see someone else attacked.

Racism won't ever stop until we stop accusing the wrong people of racism and accuse the right people of racism.

Everyone is a victim now, the problem is folks don't know how to act when/if they are stopped by police