Cop says he pulled over african american "For making direct eye contact"

[Lancero]

Earlier this month, a police officer in Dayton, Ohio, tailed a man by the name of John Felton for two miles, then pulled him over for failing to use a turn signal 100 feet prior to making his turn. To be clear: Felton used a turn signal, but he apparently didn't put it on early enough.

Only after handing over a written warning did the officer acknowledge the real reason he'd pulled over Felton, a black man who was driving a car with out-of-state plates: He had "made direct eye contact" with the officer.

The Dayton Police Department confirmed the incident in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post on Friday, and acknowledged that "making direct eye contact with an officer" is not a legitimate reason to be stopped.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cop-pulls-over-black-man-making-eye-contact_55e0ad60e4b0b7a96338e614

Ever get the feeling that some police aren't going to be happy until African Americans are all keeping their heads down to the ground and saying 'Yes masta'?

[flobee1]

1. From dayton

Sounds par for the course

[rbrnmw]

2. I was once detained in North Little Rock for looking at a cop the wrong way

I had a 7 month old baby with me and was accused of looking for crack. I was actually looking for a rental and looked at the cop because I wanted to ask for directions. He called another cop and they turned my car out. I had nothing but it scared the shit out of me and I never knowingly make eye contact with a cop passing by.

[tblue37]

3. Just curious: are you a minority? I am guessing that sort of crap is much more

likely to happen to people whose skin is not white enough to satisfy a racist cop.

[rbrnmw]

11. I have a mixed background but look white

I was questioned about prostitution by being in a "black neighborhood" looking white. I have mixed kids

[tblue37]

14. When I was a college freshman back in 1968, I took a sociology class in which we

discussed class hierarchy, bigotry, and other such topics. At one point I naively suggested that perhaps the growing acceptance of mixed marriages might eventually produce a generation of people who were neither white, black, nor brown, but rather a sort of "golden" color. My professor, who was both brilliant and snarky in a wonderful way, said that then people would be challenged on the validity and degree of their "goldenness."

"How golden are you really? How long have you been golden? Are you enhancing your goldenness in an attempt to 'pass' as more golden than you have a right to claim you are? Were your parents golden? Your grandparents? How far back in your family does golden go? Both sides? Can you prove it? Oh, yeah? Then show me your papers!"

She was right, of course. In group/out group prejudice and hatred are hardwired human traits that we share with a lot of other species because in a state of nature xenophobia and suspicion of anyone "other" confers real survival advantages. But in a less primitive society, the disadvantages such prejudices carry and the harm they inflict on innocent people far outweigh any benefit to society.

People claim that prejudice against those who are different is something unnatural that must be taught to children because kids are otherwise innocent of such bias, but that's not really true. Children are naturally leery of those who seem different from themselves and from those who are close to them. That is why we should never stop actively countering prejudice in the young, why we should consciously teach children to recognize and understand those inclinations when they naturally arise and to consciously reject their instinctive tendency toward bigotry, until eventually acceptance if the "other" becomes such a habit of mind and behavior that the individual no longer feels pushed by such prejudice in the presence of people who seem different from what they are accustomed to.

[shanti]

22. even in very interracially mixed Brazil

there is deep stratification, with names for different shades.

[flobee1]

4. Police have become

Just another gang. The only difference is that they are a gov funded gang

[tblue37]

15. The police are the largest, most dangerous armed gang in America.

I know that must be so, because a few years ago I saw that boast posted by a cop on a police Facebook page where cops went to vent.

All too many of them are proud of their ability to abuse and cow mere civilians. They see all of the rest of us as perps who just haven't been caught yet.

The "good" cops are not as good as they should be if they won't stop the bad cops from abusing people and won't stop helping to cover up bad cop behavior.

[Logical]

5. LOL, just say the real reason officer, "Driving While Black"! Idiots! nt

[hobbit709]

6. almost 50 years later these words still hold.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

[CanonRay]

7. Perfect. n/t

[yardwork]

8. Extremely racist - this is straight from Jim Crow.

Black people used to be beaten and murdered for daring to look directly at whites. It goes back to slavery and was still in force in the south and much of the rest of the country while I was growing up. I guess it's still in force.

The Justice Dept needs to look into the entire force in Dayton. No doubt other racist attitudes are embedded in their policies.

[tblue37]

16. Remember the kid arrested while playing with his puppy on the beach because, as the cop claimed,

the kid gave the cop a mean look?

https://www.aclu.org/blog/14-year-old-arrested-playing-puppy-while-black-seriously

14-Year-Old Arrested for Playing with Puppy While Black. Seriously.

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project
JUNE 5, 2013

Last week down in Florida, 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian was playing in the water with a friend at the beach when a Miami-Dade police officer approached him to ask what he was doing, misinterpreting their play for a fight. Tremaine walked away from the officers, carrying his new puppy in his arms. After observing his allegedly "dehumanizing stares" and clenched fists, the officer used his ATV to chase Tremaine down and throw him to the ground in a chokehold so intense that the teenager wet himself during the incident. It was his mother who caught part of the incident on camera.

(SNIP)

Tremaine's story . . . has yet to end. Outrageously, he is now being charged with a felony for resisting arrest with violence, and a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct. Notably, both alleged offenses apparently occurred after the teen was pursued and tackled by the police officer—which begs the question why he was pursued and tackled in the first place.

But the better question may be why did Tremaine's story end with a violent and traumatic arrest, while I was allowed to go about my business? Both of us were messing around like kids do, and both of us (allegedly) shot a dirty look at an authority figure. But as a white teen, I had my skin color on my side. Tremaine, who is Black, is now one more kid on a growing list of Black and Brown kids and young adults around the country whose actions have been ruthlessly criminalized because of their skin color. (17-year-old Trayvon Martin, 5-year-old Michael Davis, 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot, 7-year-old Wilson Reyes, and 18-year-old Ramarley Graham are just a few that come to mind.) However chilling it may be to some of us, this narrative has become alarmingly commonplace. Indeed, such incidents have become so routine that one recent article focused more attention on the welfare of the puppy than on the young man, with a headline reading "6-week-old pit bull injured by Miami-Dade police in incident near Haulover Beach."

Police detective Alvaro Zabaleta justified his physical response to McMillian, saying "All of that body language alone is already letting the officers know that this is a person that is now obviously getting agitated and can become violent." That's right: Tremaine's body language was enough to constitute a threat to the officer. "Of course we have to neutralize the threat in front of us," Zabaleta went on to say. This interpretation of Tremaine's obviously benign response to the officer is so overtly racist that one would hope the criminal charges against him would be dropped just on principle, but a judge denied his public defender's request to have the charges reconsidered.

(SNIP)

[yardwork]

23. Yes! Good example.

[Divernan]

9. The "Mom, he's LOOKING at me." school of policing

Flashback to my kids at pre-school age.
"Mom, he's LOOKING at me!"
"But, Mom, she looked at me first."

With all their re-purposed Iraq war armaments, tasers, armored vehicles, body armor, etc., far too many of today's police force are fragile little flowers, aren't they - threatened by being looked at!?!? Where is the U.S. - in some freaking dystopia where we non-one percenters are just supposed to tug our fucking forelocks and keep our eyes averted at all times?!?!?

[Lizzie Poppet]

10. Oh, no! Uppityness in the first degree!

Hide the children!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. This is why I'm an anarchist. Laws are only as good as those who write and/or enforce them.

Yet, those who more often than not go into the profession of writing and enforcing laws are corrupt, money-grubbing, racists, moralist, opportunist, power-mad hypocrites.

[left-of-center2012]

13. DWB

Driving while black/brown

[Baitball Blogger]

17. Maybe it is time to open up an investigation into police or sheriff practices

that may be stepping over the line.

For example, about fifteen years ago we had a sheriff who was accused of using the department helicopters to scare out deer out of the woods for the good ole boys who had formed a hunt club.

I'm just saying, if no one is out to investigate these things, the abuses have the potential to escalate. If true, I would not be surprised if some corrupt politico has figured out how to use his connections to call in a favor in order to use those same helicopters to intimidate neighbors.

[Solly Mack]

18. Damn

[DirkGently]

19. Video's pretty chilling.

When questioned on his conduct, the officer responds with a threat to issue the nonsense citation he had obviously pre-imagined to justify himself.

[lonestarnot]

20. How do these kinds of fucksters get onto the police force in any capacity?

[DefenseLawyer]

21. The only thing I can add

Is that I hope that no one is under the impression that this is anything new or that it's "getting worse" all the sudden. This is normal police behavior and has been since before any of us were born. It is simply that technology has improved our ability to observe and make a record of it.

[Rex]

24. Cop apologist says - oh you guys are all haters!

DU cop apologist will be along shortly to tell you why you are a bad person for hating on cops since they never do anything wrong.

SSDD

[Dont call me Shirley]

25. WTF! KKKop.

[Dawson Leery]

26. The laws are only as good as the people who enforce them.

If corrupt people (corrupt coppers) enforce the laws, then the laws are no good.