White officer's heartfelt post on pulling over a black teen (1 Viewer)

[First Time Poster]

White officer's heartfelt post on pulling over a black teen resonates widely - CNN.com

"I pulled a car over last night for texting and driving. When I went to talk to the driver, I found a young black male, who was looking at me like he was absolutely terrified with his hands up. He said, "What do you want me to do officer?" His voice was quivering. He was genuinely scared.


I just looked at him for a moment, because what I was seeing made me sad. I said, "I just don't want you to get hurt."


In which he replied, with his voice still shaking, "Do you want me to get out of the car."


I said, "No, I don't want you to text and drive. I don't want you to get in a wreck. I want your mom to always have her baby boy. I want you to grow up and be somebody. I don't even want to write you a ticket. Just please pay attention, and put the phone down. I just don't want you to get hurt."


I truly don't even care who's fault it is that young man was so scared to have a police officer at his window. Blame the media, blame bad cops, blame protestors, or Colin Kaepernick if you want. It doesn't matter to me who's to blame. I just wish somebody would fix it."- Lt. Tim McMillan

Bravo sir, bravo. The bold is mine. I agree. He doesn't realize that by his compassion he starts us down the road to fixing it.

"In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there."-Karen Armstrong

 

[DaveXA]

White officer's heartfelt post on pulling over a black teen resonates widely - CNN.com



Bravo sir, bravo. The bold is mine. I agree. He doesn't realize that by his compassion he starts us down the road to fixing it.

"In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there."-Karen Armstrong

The world could use more of this. Thanks for the post.

 

[KCWhoDat]

Good post...

 

[LombardiGras]

This illustrates something I've been wondering... Does anybody have the historical statistics on police killings of black men say for the past 30 years? I'm curious to know if there has been an increase or a decrease. Public awareness of police shooting black men has definitely increased, resulting in widespread outrage as well as the fear that is described here in the OP. I am curious to know if this rise in public perception of police killing black men actually correlates to the trend of police killings.

 

[Galbreath34]

No, the data has intentionally never been kept in the US, because the FBI and other agencies that keep statistics don't want to keep ones that might be bad for LEOs.

The only data on shootings at all that's reliable have only been done by surveys of news stories and for the last decade or so from blotters. So there's some data, but not reliable breakout by race. Because there's no way to know in every case from news stories or blotters what the race of the deceased was. We have reliable trends on total number being shot, and the numbers are increasing for civilians shot and decreasing for officers shot (almost twice as many officers, 75% as many raw number shot, so a hefty decline, more than cut in half since peak in 70s).

Here's about as good as you're going to find: US police shootings: How many die each year? - BBC News

 

[1K SPORT]

So the kid is so afraid of cops, but he still chooses to do something illegal to attract the attention of the people he is so afraid of.

Whatever.

 

[superchuck500]

So the kid is so afraid of cops, but he still chooses to do something illegal to attract the attention of the people he is so afraid of.

Whatever.

Have you ever done anything illegal while operating a vehicle?

 

[JimEverett]

So the kid is so afraid of cops, but he still chooses to do something illegal to attract the attention of the people he is so afraid of.

Whatever.

Come on man

 

[mt15]

This came across my FB feed. It really touches me for both sides.

 

[1K SPORT]

Have you ever done anything illegal while operating a vehicle?

Sure have. Pretty sure I will again at some point. Not sure what that has to do with anything.

When I get pulled over, I know why I'm getting pulled over and that I deserve it. The times I don’t/didn't get pulled over while doing something illegal, I consider myself lucky.

If I really don't want to get pulled over, I don’t do stupid stuff to get the cops attention. Pretty simple really.

 

[Zanedavis1]

So the kid is so afraid of cops, but he still chooses to do something illegal to attract the attention of the people he is so afraid of.

Whatever.

Really, Dude?

 

[showtimesaints]

education, its what we ALL need in this world, we would have love and respect for one another, rather than hate and racism. teach!

very moving and thanks for sharing.

 

[billinms]

So the kid is so afraid of cops, but he still chooses to do something illegal to attract the attention of the people he is so afraid of.

Whatever.

There's a lot here that you just don't get.

 

[uproar90]

Can I please borrow the ban hammer?

 

[Zack Lee]

when this type of feeling becomes strong enough in the majority of officers to trump the "defend brotherhood no matter what" feeling, then the problem will fix itself. They will have to adopt a policy of actually policing the brotherhood before they police anything else. I don't think the problem gets better from anything short of that and it is a very tall order from where we currently stand.

Great post.