How do you feel about stop and frisk (and policing more broadly) as an answer to Philly’s gun violence crisis? Get in touch. I will always remember my first time getting stopped by the police. I was 22, living in South Jersey, and was driving home from a movie date.
I remembered my parents giving me “the talk” many years ago: Keep both hands on the wheel, be compliant — always answer with “yes, sir” or “no, sir.” I was sweating a lot. I could barely keep my hands from shaking. My heart was racing, my stomach was queasy, and combined with the flashing red and blue lights, which illuminated the inside of my whole car, it almost felt like a near-death experience.
I thought about what happened to Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that summer. I feared that one wrong move — just fidgeting with my hands or legs — and that could be it. I would join a long line of unarmed Black men killed by the police.
During that police stop, I asked a lot of questions to myself: Does this officer see me as a threat? Was I being targeted? Did I have a right to defend myself if I thought my life was in danger? It turned out I had been stopped for a broken tail light. I didn’t even get a ticket. A few minutes later, I was back on the road. It turned out that my tail light wasn’t really broken, though. And that nervous feeling stuck with me.
That first police stop changed my entire perception of safety. To this day, my anxiety billows if I see a Ford F-150 or Dodge Charger behind me. It’s the kind of vigilance, the buzzing anxiety of fight or flight, many Black people feel when they see police officers.
