This video shows
what seems to be a routine police stop. A woman driving without her seatbelt
usually would get pulled over, maybe get a ticket, and be on her way. But in
this video, things escalate quickly as they take interest in her male
passenger, asking him for his information. As he reaches into his backpack to
get his information, the police officer points a gun at him with his children sitting
in the back seat. After handing over the information, the police want him to
get out of the car; this is when a passenger in the back seat begins to film.
They simply tell the officers there’s no reason for them to get out; that, as a
passenger, he has never had to get out of the car on a traffic stop. Upon his
refusal, the officers break the window,
tase the man, and drag him out of the car, with the children crying in
the back seat. 
Because of
technology these incidences are being more frequently reported. It makes you wonder how often these events
occur and are not documented. What
appears to be a rise in misconduct may be the more-frequent reporting of
incidents, because cell phones have cameras in them. Now African Americans and other races that
are most commonly abused by police may actually have a way to protect
themselves, if lucky enough to be able to record the incident.
Not only were the
police in this routine traffic stop excessive and threatening, but we see how
“driving while black,” can make you a target for such abuse. As we discussed in
class, the war on drugs has stereotyped minorities as drug users, gangsters,
and lawbreakers. It’s dangerous enough being pulled over by someone with
untreated racial bias; now this same person has been trained to assume the
worst in African Americans.
The killing of an
unarmed black man in Ferguson, and the publicized protest that followed, have
created more division and fear on both ends. Police are becoming more
militarized, defensive, and ready to use force. At the same time African Americans, like the
man in the video, are cautious and afraid of police doing harm to them just
because they are black.
The man in this
video, Jamal Jones, has clear-cut evidence of police abuse of power and is
suing the Hammond Police Department. The
police claim they were justified because he refused to exit the vehicle and
they feared he was reaching for a gun in the back seat. Upon investigation, of
course, they discovered the man, as he claimed, did not have a gun. The woman driving, Lisa Mahone, told police
she was in a rush to get to the hospital and see her dying mother. When she
attempted to move the car forward, the police placed a stop strip in front of
her care so, if she attempted to move, her tires would be punctured. Mahone tried to be cooperative, and was ready
to get the ticket and be on her way. But
police smashed the window glass, shattering the glass over the children in the
back seat. It’s clear that this was a
routine traffic stop taken to extremes unnecessarily by the police; the
violence actions and rude language of the police are shocking in any case. If
only this were an isolated incident; but it is not. Incidents such as this are beginning to
flood the media as this problem becomes more and more exposed; and the divide
between police and minorities is widening.
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