And you thought 'Travon' incidents could only happen in the South;

[greiner3]

"Teen wants apology after officer pulls gun

“A gun was pointed at me (Xzavier Brandon) and handcuffs were put on me, and that’s everything that’s done to a criminal,” Brandon said in an interview last week.

Exempt from final exams because of good test scores at New Albany High School, Brandon was walking his usual route to preseason football practice on May 28 when a resident of Hilltop Trail Drive thought he looked suspicious. A house in the Northeast Side neighborhood had been broken into between 8:30 a.m. and 12:40 p.m., when the homeowner returned and discovered the crime.

“There’s someone walking down the street who might have something to do with this,” he told the Columbus police dispatcher (Mike Eberts). “It may just be a coincidence that he’s just walking by, but it sure looks suspicious to me.” He told the dispatcher he would follow the youth in his car.

Eberts, the neighbor who called police, said this week, “I wasn’t accusing anyone of anything. I simply was encouraging the police to talk with someone in the area.” He wouldn’t elaborate on what he thought was suspicious about Brandon."

How many times have we heard it said, 'Brandon was guilty of being black'.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. Post needs a link.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Yup

More linkie, less cut'n'pastie. I hope the author of this OP heeds this advice before intervention on the part of a host or admin is necessary. Hungry lawyers live for shit like this.

[mercuryblues]

6. found it.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/30/teen-wants-apology-after-officer-pulls-gun.html

[LuvNewcastle]

8. Thank you.

[uppityperson]

22. THANK YOU FOR THE LINK

sorry for the yell, hoping others might notice before asking for it. Thanks for the link.

[coldmountain]

13. Please quit defending the south, thou doth protest too much

The south won't move forward until it admits it has a problem. When the president of Emory says that compromises about slavery had a good aspect, I would say institutionally the ex-Confederacy still has problems admitting guilt about slavery.

WHY NOT QUIT IDENTIFYING WITH THE SOUTH AND IDENTIFY WITH AMERICA OR SOMETHING GREATER THAN THE CONFEDERACY?

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. It isn't a Southern problem, it's an American problem.

See for instance the charts below, NYPD stop-and-frisk by race and by seizures of weapons, drugs and illicit items per stop (black and Hispanic = 50% NYC population, 83% of people stopped and frisked by police, and the numbers say that statistically whites are more likely to be carrying weapons, drugs, and other illegal items).

[coldmountain]

17. Very few defend NYC but there's a cult of "defend the south". Why?

[txwhitedove]

19. If you attacked NYC like many do the "South", then NYC would be defended. As a southerner, I know

this is an American problem. I'm glad Paula Deen is unmasked and seen for who she really is, not a southerner, but a plain old racist, hypocritical bigot.

[coldmountain]

20. Why identify as a southerner?

[txwhitedove]

21. Oh FFS! Why do you identify yourself as "coldmountain" as in the south as in the book and movie?

In this instance the OP is about "And you thought "Travon" instances only happen in the South..."
So we're kind of like, you know, discussing it.

[coldmountain]

23. I liked the movie,it was a rebuke to Confederate fascism and revisionist history about the Civil War

The "Home guard" de-romanticizes the glories of the Confederate cause in the Civil War.

[txwhitedove]

25. Good for you. I loved the movie too.

[enlightenment]

26. How is this a "defense" of the south?

It is simply pointing out that the south is not the only place - far from the only place - this crap occurs. Perhaps the OP felt it worthwhile to point out since there are quite a few people on DU who seem to believe that racism is only a southern problem.

I could ask you why you are so determined to "defend" the north - because that's how your responses look. That's not what you're trying to do, I'm sure, but your posts appear very reflexive.

[backwoodsbob]

27. ummm...we aren't the confederacy

any more than you are still part of the British Empire

[DrDan]

2. who thought that?

Rodney King?
Abner Louima?

[MrScorpio]

3. Link, baby! nt

[ileus]

4. Walking while black....it can happen anywhere.

[NutmegYankee]

10. Yep.

[ananda]

7. In the current geist of this particular police state ...

... the people doing the policing are acting like reptilian robots on steroids.

They do very little thinking when it comes to handling or arresting targeted
people, many of these teens and even children.

To my mind it's nuts, but as far as I can tell, the whole society is cracking up
and has been for a while.

[SecularMotion]

9. This is nothing like the murder of Travon Martin.

In this case, the citizen called 911 and correctly allowed the authorities to handle things. Quite unlike a gun toting vigilante murdering an innocent youth in Florida.

[LuvNewcastle]

11. This is typical police profiling.

The very same thing has happened to me a couple of times, and I'm white. I have a shaved head, goatee, and I'm kind of a big guy. People have told me before that I'm kind of intimidating, but I forget about how I look because I'm the last person in the world who would bother anyone unless someone fucks with me.

The police always say that I look like the description of a suspect that was called in. What they really mean is that I look like someone who COULD BE a suspect. It happens to a lot of people all the time and if you happen to have the wrong thing in your pockets, you can go to jail for walking down the street. It's bullshit and it needs to stop.

[cordelia]

12. Nope. Never thought that all.

[Recursion]

15. I did?

News to me.

[baldguy]

16. In any lily-white suburb or exburb anywhere, "suspicious person" is equivalent to "black".

[CakeGrrl]

18. This happens EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME

If someone really believes this is only a phenomenon that occurs in the South, then they really have been sheltered from information and they do not know better from personal experience or association, as some of us do.

[Mariana]

24. Except no one really believes that.

Of course it happens everywhere, all the time, to black people and other minorities, and also to some particular white people (like the poster above). No one believes it only ever happens in the south.

[uponit7771]

28. wow!!

[heaven05]

29. ain't

freedom grand? If it had been an unfamiliar white kid "just walking by", would he have raised the same 'suspicion'?