It annoys the crap out of me when people use handicap parking as a convenience spot for their quick-in, quick-out shopping trip, the length of which depends on whether or not you’re forced to park an acre away because someone able-bodied couldn’t be bothered to walk the distance you’ll now have to travel.
So, 8:25 PM CDT, exiting the store, I nod my head in approval as a police officer is bent toward the driver’s side window of a silver SUV with no handicap plates or sign, his pickup truck cruiser parked behind the offender(s). Good, I think. I hope they get a ticket.
I take my receipt to my car and proceed to drive to the pick-up area, being long since resigned to the sympathetic “Sir”s as teenagers load up my groceries, my pride a considerably diminished thing these days. As I creep along in the parking lot, I notice the occupants of the silver SUV. There are three of them.
They all appear to be under the age of thirty.
They are all African-American, two men and a woman.
The officer is a white male.
I feel a tingle on the back of my neck, one that has slowly grown stronger over the years, as I have become more and more aware of how various people are treated in various ways in this country. I slow to a crawl, watching. No one seems agitated. No raised voices. This means nothing; we’ve all seen how these things can escalate in seconds. I tell myself not to get carried away. Nothing untoward is happening. The SUV is illegally parked. The officer is serving the peace. Chill.
A few minutes later, I turn in my seat to thank the young man who has finished loading my groceries. Across the lot, I see the flashing of lights, red and blue, red and blue. The officer has turned on his cherries. Whatever for, I do not know. I frown. I want to go home and get these groceries put away. My wife leaves tomorrow morning for a conference, and won’t be back for a couple days. I want to spend some time with her before she goes. I want to rest my leg; it’s kicking my ass.
Dammit.
I creep back across the lot in my car. The pickup truck cruiser has been joined by a sport SUV cruiser, its cherries harsh, glaring, out of synch with the truck’s. No. There is a third. A more traditional squad car. Three cars. Five cops. I pass the scene on my left, idling. Three cops are circling the SUV, their flashlights out, stabbing bright lights into the windows and sweeping them under the vehicle. All three occupants are trapped inside. I find I am holding both my breath and my phone.
I pull ahead until I find an open stall, and park. I roll down my windows and tap the password into my phone, calling up the video camera, thumb hovering over the Record button. I watch. I am reminded of many knock-off 1980’s terror-at-sea movies inspired by Jaws. Frightened people huddle on (in) an island of metal, glass, and rubber, as predators circle them, moving in at different angles to flash the occupants from the driver’s side, the passenger side, the rear passenger side, like sharks or jackals darting in to snap at cornered prey before rejoining the circle.
Shoppers stroll by, as if this is all just scenery. My teeth hurt, and I realize I’m clenching them. I work my jaw loose, watching the events unfold. A part of my brain regresses into four and a half decades of privilege. What did they do, it wonders, to draw this much attention? Did they--
No, the rest of my brain interrupts before I can find a rational answer that somehow evades Occam’s Razor. You’re looking for an excuse. You’re looking for criminals where there are just people, with no evidence beyond a minor parking violation and a disproportionate police presence. Stop it. You know what this is. You readied your camera app for a reason.
I do. I did.
I am angry. Sure, there is some infinitesimal chance this is somehow justified. But Occam’s Razor says it’s not. The never-quite-dormant comedian part of my brain wants to tell the cops they’ve made legal the parking violation by making dark skin a handicap. But this isn’t funny; it’s infuriating. Which means it’s frightening. And it’s not even happening to me.
What are they thinking, the people in the SUV? “Please don’t let this be it.”? “Not again.”? Some combination of the two, or something beyond my experience as a white male in a society made for me? I don’t know.
I have time to wonder these things, because it’s 9:07 PM CDT, and this parking ticket (or whatever is so scary it needs three cars and five cops to handle, yet is so safe no perimeter prevents shoppers from strolling by, mere feet away, without a care in the world) has been going on for 42+ minutes. Who knows how long it was going on before I noticed it? I wonder, briefly, if that should become the official White People Slogan: “Who knows how long it was going on before I noticed it?” This is my comedy mind, trying to make all this less horrible and maddening and infuriating. It’s not doing a good job.
Three black kids. A minor offense. A whiff of uncertainty. A sudden and overwhelming and unnecessary police presence. It is a violation of its own. Bullying. Deliberately instilling fear. A psychic assault. A horrifying and infuriating situation for me.
Everyday shit for the people in the car.
9:16 PM CDT. The pickup cruiser’s cherries wink out. It’s like someone taking a needle out of the side of my eye. I’ve been watching the goings-on surrounding the SUV so intently, I did not notice the first officer get in his vehicle. It begins to creep away. The other cops peel off from the pack circling the SUV, returning to their vehicles. They, too, slowly move off, leaving the SUV behind.
Is it over?
Such a question. For me, yes. For them, no. In the highly unlikely event this is the last time they have to go through this, they will likely remember it for a long time. Maybe for life. I recall my own youth; run-ins with the more gung-ho, twitchy members of law enforcement. Did I forget? No. This night will weigh on the occupants of the silver SUV for life. They won’t forget.
But for now, they are free to go. Physically intact, at least. The SUV backs out and pulls away. I return to the home-screen on my phone, glad it did not become Exhibit A in another tragedy. I start my car and leave the grocery store parking lot. At the traffic lights, I realize I’m behind the silver SUV. They are going “my way”, turning onto the County Road, then onto the US Highway. They are driving very, very carefully, with metronomic precision, exactly two miles per hour under the speed limit.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
No. No, it does not. It waves o’er the land of the terrified citizen, and the home where a small army of cops are needed to hand three black kids a parking ticket, but not before a rootin’ tootin’ yer-kind-ain’t-welcome-here shindig, an evil act of intimidation. A predatory act. A shameful act.
And that, people who think it’s about flags and anthems and veterans, is why Colin Kaepernick sat down.