Fight or flight?
by Tom Sullivan
Eric Garner: selling loose cigarettes
John Crawford: shopping at Walmart
Tamir Rice: playing in a park
Walter Scott: burned out brake light
Freddie Gray: running from police
Sandra Bland: failure to signal lane change
Sam Dubose: not displaying a front license tag
The first three were on foot. Police stopped Freddie Gray for running when he saw them. Police stopped the other three for minor traffic violations. All African American and all dead after the encounters.
In 45 years of driving while white, I recall being pulled over for something as trivial as failure to signal a lane change exactly once. How many times had Sandra Bland at age 28 been stopped for minor offenses before being dragged from her car on July 10, 2015?
In the case of Sam Dubose, a grand jury this week indicted Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing for murder over the July 19 shooting. The (ironically named) Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph Deters called the shooting “the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make, totally unwarranted.”
Watching the body-cam video, it seems that Dubose wanted to get away when the white officer asked him to step out of the car. Imagine that.
Imagine you are an African American stopped for a traffic violation as trivial as a missing front license plate and, based on recent events, consider the possibility that in moments you might die. What does raw instinct demand? Fight or flight?
Except choosing either (as if instinct is a choice) is proof for the warrior cop of something much more threatening than an expired tag. Fleeing imminent death becomes proof of malice, the way drowning once proved an accused witch innocent.
According to Deters, Sam Dubose died over “chicken crap stuff” and Tensing “never should have been a police officer.” One wonders how many others fall into that category.