White Cop vs Black Ped — Another Video Goes Viral

Here we go again: yet another bad interaction between cop and citizen posted on YouTube. This time it happened in Edina — Minnesota’s not-so-nice, predominately white suburb. In this case, a black man wearing headphones was seen walking on the side of a street while a portion of the sidewalk was under construction. That was it. That was the “criminal activity” that caused law enforcement to spring into action.

Don’t even get me started on all the black people who make the mistake of driving-while-black in Edina. I’m not even going to mention how suspicious it is for black people to actually drive in Edina, and then not even drive an SUV on those city streets. Not today. We won’t even go there today. There’s not enough time, there’s not enough space here to go into detail.

Today our focus is on a specific incident, but one that repeats similar patterns we’ve already seen before. My concern is that no one — not the local or national media, not the police union, not the zeitgeist — is paying attention to these patterns that keep occurring whenever white cops and black citizens interact badly.

Before you read any more of my op-ed, go to YouTube and view the incident for yourself. You can find it on YouTube by keying in Edina Police Incident 10/12/16 by Citizen 7101 on YouTube. Think about what you’ve just seen, then reflect on it. Then resume reading this opinion-editorial with the understanding that too many discussions about this case have missed some important points.

Too many discussions have failed to notice similar patterns that keep repeating themselves.

Now it’s time for all of us to examine what happened and to really pay attention to what this incident can teach us.

First of all, let’s consider the all-important dash-cam. Why is it that whenever there’s any question of police misconduct, there’s never any police video of it? The camera/recording device that’s supposed to be in every squad car never delivers. It’s either not turned on, malfunctioning, broken, or mysteriously “lost.” Or, it’s working and the police department doesn’t want to show anyone who’s outside the blue wall.

What was the point of spending so much money on these dash- cams when law enforcement never intended to properly use them in the first place?

Second, let’s look at how law enforcement identifies — or misidentifies — themselves as law enforcement authorities. Newsflash: they don’t. And if they do, they usually do a lousy job of telling the public who they really are.

Whether they’re undercover, off-duty, or otherwise in plainclothes, policemen out of uniform just don’t look like policemen to a lot of people. Without the familiar uniform, a policeman or sheriff or highway patrolman doesn’t look like a law enforcement official at all. He might look like an actor playing a scene or just another guy going to a costume party.

In this particular case, the officer involved who was out of uniform looked like a regular guy — another civilian who started ordering around a stranger in his neighborhood. I’ve watched the news reports on TV and the video from YouTube, and I still can’t decide whether this cop looked like a bossy high school football coach or disgruntled insurance salesman. He sure didn’t look like a policeman to me. He reminded me of one of those fussy older guys who like to take issue with litterbugs messing up his yard.

So of course, a lot of people in the black pedestrian shoe’s might wonder, “Hey, what’s HIS problem? Who does this guy think he is, bossing me around and trying to pick a fight with me?” That’s what most people would think if they didn’t perceive that guy as a cop. And that cop who didn’t look like a cop did a poor job of identifying himself.

His approach was all wrong. He didn’t take the time to show his badge and explain who he was or why he was even stopping pedestrian Larnie Thomas, 34. He just started barking orders to get off the street. And that didn’t make any sense because Mr. Thomas had to walk on the side of the street since the sidewalk he needed to walk on was being torn up and reconstructed.

This brings us to our third major concern: lack of emotional intelligence. This police officer displayed no emotional intelligence in his handling of this situation. Hello, you’re on Xerxes Avenue South. That means motorists are continually going faster than the speed limit and not stopping at Stop signs. Now you might use that reality to defend this cop by saying that he was only trying to protect the black pedestrian. But if you did, you’d also have to acknowledge the big picture.

I tried to be a pedestrian on Xerxes Avenue too, but I didn’t want to die. Driving a car along that street is a whole lot safer than walking — even if you do walk on the sidewalk. Had Mr. Thomas even attempted to use the sidewalk on the other side of the street, he would’ve had to cross a speedway where drivers typically drive too fast and rarely stop at Stop signs…EVEN IF HE WOULD HAVE CROSSED AT THE INTERSECTION. And then, he would’ve had to cross the street again to catch his bus or reach his destination. Good luck with that plan.

Come to think of it, why don’t the Edina Police issue more citations to motorists who exceed the speed limit, go through red lights, or cruise through Stop signs?

Funny how the Edina Police can always look the other way when white people ignore traffic laws and yet become hyper-vigilant whenever a black person walks into a white neighborhood. You don’t need a PhD in Behavioral Psychology to realize that the policeman in question was being unfair and that Mr. Thomas was going to resent this unfairness. And yet, when Mr. Thomas asked why the cop was putting his hands on him and then asked him to stop putting his hands on him, the cop continued to hold him.

It was pretty obvious to me that this policeman could see that Mr. Thomas was becoming increasingly upset with the actions of law enforcement. And yet, this policeman further escalated the situation into an angry confrontation by provoking Mr. Thomas in a passive-aggressive manner. Not only would the cop in question NOT take his hands off Mr. Thomas, when Mr. Thomas used some typical cuss words that are heard everyday, this cop reprimanded him with, “Don’t use that kind of language in this neighborhood.”

What, exactly, did that remark mean? Did this cop mean that it was okay for him to use profanity in his inner-city black neighborhood but not okay to use it in the white suburbs?

But how could this cop make such an assumption when he had no idea where Mr. Thomas lived? Maybe the black pedestrian he apprehended was bi-racial. Maybe he was new in town. He didn’t know, but that didn’t stop him from making assumptions that were highly prejudicial.

Thank God a concerned bystander was around to get this incident on YouTube. Without her intervention, we wouldn’t have been able to examine and study this video. How easy this video samaritan helped us see what happened — and prepared us for what inevitably happens next in all these cases.

Almost immediately the other cops figuratively circled their squad cars and defended their brother officer by saying he followed police protocol. Then within the usual 48 hour timeline, the black guy in this incident got blamed. In just a short time, the Edina Police Department provided the media with every run-in Mr. Thomas had ever had with authority figures. And of course, a drug test had to be run because the cop in question “smelled liquor on his breath.” The drug test revealed that Mr. Thomas had indeed consumed liquor… like so many other white people in Edina who had disobeyed the law. Oh, what about the video samaritan who filmed the incident and dared to ask the cop for his name and badge number? Another cop on the scene took this bystander’s name and driver’s license. Why? Was she doing something “illegal” too?

Once again we have an incident fueled by racism that no one in law enforcement even wants to admit has racist undertones.