Hello all. This is the first time I’ve done this but the shooting of Jacob Blake and the encouragement of StephanieWarriorPrincess inspired to write this. The recent abuse of black American citizens is out of control and has gone on way too long and my story shows the double standard that our police communities have nationwide.
In 2010, I took my wife to the Portland Oregon Airport so she could fly home to spend Father’s Day with her parents and siblings. I’m a diabetic and have been on disability for a number of years now due to issues that I have had with diabetes and gastroparesis, a stomach issue that affects digestion of food.
When I took my wife to the airport for her flight, my plan was to get something to eat right after she went though the TSA security area. My diabetes had another plan. After my wife went though the TSA security check and started to toward the boarding area, my blood sugars started dropping to dangerously low levels. I wandered around the airport for somewhere close to an hour unaware of what I was doing or what was going on. Like I was drunk or stoned.
About an hour and a half after I left my wife, I started to regain consciousness. I remember struggling to move and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t move my arms ( I was handcuffed and on the floor).I remember people screaming at me, wanting to know what kind of drugs I had taken and how much I alcohol I had consumed. This was around 11:00 am on a Saturday Morning. I told the people (Portland Police Officers and a K-9 unit) yelling me what I was I doing at the airport, but I was mixing up my words and what I was saying wasn’t making any sense. In my mind, I knew what I was saying was confusing. I finally got it out that I was a diabetic and the officers called an ambulance to the scene. The Paramedics told the officers that I probably had low blood sugars and that was why I was acting the way I was acting.
I remember the officers being totally baffled that a diabetic with low blood sugars would act that way. The paramedics insisted that the police lift me off the ground, put me in a chair and remove the handcuffs. After my blood sugar was checked, it was somewhere in the low 30’s. After I was given something to raise my glucose levels, the police were all laughing and joking around about the way I had been acting when they showed up. The police had taken my wallet from me when they handcuffed me and removed my drivers license. I keep a card in my wallet that says I’m a diabetic and is half way visible when my license is in it’s place and fully visible once it’s removed. Not a one of them paid any attention to it.
About a half hour after the ambulance showed up and my blood sugars returned to normal, the cops let me go like nothing had ever happened. I feel I was extremely lucky that all that happened to me was being handcuffed, placed on the floor, yelled at by Portland Police, and had a dog in my face, although all the dog did was lick my arm (the dog’s handler got extremely pissed at the dog for doing this). I believe the dog knew what was going on and realized that I wasn’t a threat, but that I was in danger.
The jest of my story is that I’m a 63 year old white male. The worst that happened to me that day is I was handcuffed and placed on the floor. My wrists were black and blue for a few weeks after that from struggling trying to move my arms. What might have happened to me had I not been a white man?
