Skip to main content

Doubt


This morning I turn your attention to a news item in the Columbia Flier/ Howard County Times:

State trooper fatally shoots driver in Elkridge after traffic stop  , Hallie Miller, Stephanie García, Phillip Jackson

I’ve been concerned about this incident since I saw information unfold on Twitter last Friday morning. How did a traffic stop for DWI become a death sentence for the driver? Will body camera footage make any sense of this? Will the state police release the footage?

The article covers the multiple facets of this story, raising good questions. Was the state trooper’s handling of the situation influenced by the fact that the driver was Hispanic? Is it standard procedure to reach into the car to remove keys? 

Something the article raises that I hadn’t considered:


Wondering if everyone in a uniform is working for immigration has got to be a frightening state of existence. Even members of the Latino community who are here legally are fearful, because the record shows that ICE has been arbitrary in how they enact their mission. It is dangerous merely to look Hispanic.

On the other hand:

Driving while impaired by alcohol is a serious issue. I don’t dispute that. It is every bit as dangerous as wandering about intoxicated while holding a loaded weapon. The instinct to get the keys away from the driver is understandable. Drunk drivers don’t endanger only themselves, but every one else on the road with them. 

Yet, as story after story comes out across the country where police are shown to interact with Black and Brown people in a completely different way than they engage with whites, I look at this incident in Elkridge and wonder. Is there more to the story? Would a white driver have ended up alive at the end of this traffic stop? Will the body camera footage corroborate the state trooper’s account?

There was a time in my life that I would have read the state trooper’s account and taken his word for it. Now I find myself uncomfortable with giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

Kudos to the journalists who took the time to examine this story. It gives the reader more than the usual amplification of a police report. Read it and tell me what you think.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more