Runnin’ With Reggie

Authority (Police Department) Figures: On Friday, March 26, 2010 I left my building on my way heading to the gym (something that I do regularly every Wednesday and Friday about 2:00 pm). Only on this day I was stopped by two plain clothes detectives (male and female) in an unmarked police car. Their statement to me was that I came out of my building to fast. Oh, forgive me … I did not know that I must come out of my building at a snail’s pace and, I have been coming in and out of my building for over twenty plus years…go figure? Is this some new type of training that the Police Department has authorized as a requirement for their officers (due to all of the new terrorist threats in the world?). Although this was the first time I have gotten stopped for coming out of my building (fast or slow), I doubt very much that it will be the last time that something like this will happen. Again, I was shocked, put off guard, and saddened to see this type of thing still happens. I was upset so much that I could not go to the gym and workout as I normally would do. Instead after they (Police) found that they could not antagonize me and, that I have not done anything and that I was not on any of their lists (after running my name through they’re system), they let me go free as if they have done nothing wrong. Keep in mind that in my neighborhood you will always see someone running, jogging, and walking fast, hurrying to catch a bus or hurrying to the train station hoping that they have not missed it. So, if someone comes out of their building somewhat quick, more likely they are hurrying for an appointment in which they don’t want to be late. From me to you my readers/followers they (the Police Officers) have done something wrong to me. They humiliated me in public, they stopped me from heading to my appointment, they harassed me to the point where I could barely think straight, and they embarrassed me in front of neighbors in my community; leading them to think that I was a criminal of some sort. I think that these officers should be reprimanded and retrained.

I recall when I was very young that there were times that a police officer would not pay any attention to me (especially in my community), even if I really needed their help. Don’t get me wrong they (the police) would pay attention to me but, only if it helped them. That’s when I was a kid but, now I am a grown man, an adult. It seems that nothing has changed!!! If I truly needed help from the Police Department (then and even now) it’s a toss up (heads that they will come, tails that they will take their time getting to me) but, that’s me. (Whatever reason that they give it will be accepted by those higher up); I was not the only person and, I am not the only person treated in such a special way by these sentinels. Yet, I cannot help but to think, hmmm! As a young man I thought it very odd, very strange; as the days, months and the years continue to pass I see more of the same type of non caring from people who are supposed to be in a position of authority. So, I have come to believe that although these people are placed in a position of authority (to watch over and protect people), they are now and have always been a gang. Basically, if you really weigh the PROS and the CONS their rules are the same, only they have the law on their side. I really have to say that my neighborhood has become gentrified in the last few years and nothing like this had happened to me prior to the gentrification so I am going to call it like I see it – I was a victim of racial profiling. Let me state here and now that NOT ALL OF THE MEN AND WOMEN IN BLUE ARE SELFISH but, there are not many in my book. THAT’S THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS!

I’d just like to add that this same incident happened to (and keeps happening) Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on July 20, 2009, of last year. See below:

Harvard professor Gates arrested at Cambridge home: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling. Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed. He was booked for disorderly conduct after “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior,” according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had "no idea who he was messing with,'' the report said. Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because "I'm a black man in America.'' Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said. The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. "It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,'' the officer wrote in the report. Gates, 58, declined to comment today when reached by phone. The arrest of such a prominent scholar under what some described as dubious circumstances shook some members of the black Harvard community. “He and I both raised the question of if he had been a white professor, whether this kind of thing would have happened to him, that they arrested him without any corroborating evidence,” said S. Allen Counter, a Harvard Medical School professor who spoke with Gates about the incident Friday. “I am deeply concerned about the way he was treated, and called him to express my deepest sadness and sympathy.” Counter, who had called Gates from the Nobel Institute in Sweden, where Counter is on sabbatical, said that Gates was “shaken” and “horrified” by his arrest. Counter has faced a similar situation himself. The well-known neuroscience professor, who is also black, was stopped by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect as he crossed Harvard Yard. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification. That incident was among several that ignited criticism from black students and faculty, highlighting the prejudices that many black students say they continue to face at Harvard. “This is very disturbing that this could happen to anyone, and not just to a person of such distinction,” Counter said. “He was just shocked that this had happened, at 12:44 in the afternoon, in broad daylight. It brings up the question of whether black males are being targeted by Cambridge police for harassment.” Cambridge police would not comment on the arrest, citing an investigation into the incident by Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. A spokesman for Leone said Gates is scheduled to be arraigned on Aug. 26 and said the office could not provide details on the arrest until that time. Gates is being represented by Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, who has taken on previous cases with racial implications. THAT’S THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS!