Ron Sims, WA State's most powerful black politico, has been stopped 8 times.

[pnwmom]

And at 68, he's still being stopped.

Ron Sims is the former Executive of King County, the most populous county in the State.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/driving-while-black-even-seattles-ron-sims-counts-8-cop-stops/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_left_1.1

The stops have gotten regular enough that he keeps a tally. He’s been stopped in his own neighborhood, Mount Baker. The most recent was last year, on Rainier Avenue. It remains vivid to Sims because the officer didn’t identify what Sims had done wrong. Instead he asked: “Where are you going?”

“I know not to argue with the police, so I didn’t,” Sims said. “But I’m thinking to myself, ‘You stopped me to ask where I’m going? What possible business is that of yours?’?”

Sims told me this in April and since then, I think of it often. He’s an ordained Baptist minister, was the longest-serving King County executive ever (1996-2009) and is now a Washington State University regent. He’s arguably the most successful black politician in Seattle history, as well as a pillar volunteer in the community.

Yet he’s been pulled over eight times.

I have never been pulled over in the city. I drove around for years in a 30-year-old Volvo with a muffler tied on with a coat hanger and red tape for a taillight. Never pulled over once.

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[Skittles]

2. I have been stopped many times

lead foot

[pnwmom]

3. Ron Sims says he doesn't have a lead foot. And at age 67, the police

stopped him to ask where he was going -- in his own neighborhood, where a significant number of African Americans happen to live.

Hmmm . . . .

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. He was also the Deputy Secretary of HUD during Obama's first term...and my boss. Great man!

BLACK LIVES MATTER!!

[Chakab]

5. "Where are you going?" "What are you doing in this neighborhood?"

"Whose vehicle is this?"

I've had well over a dozen traffic stops where some variation of those questions was the first thing that the officer said. Most of them ended with no citation after they ran me through NCIC and didn't find any warrants and saw that the car/truck that I was driving was registered in my name.

[bemildred]

6. I'm white, I drive 15 year old cars. I never get stopped. Haven't been stopped in decades.

I drove all over the USA, Colorado, Missouri, Alabama, MIchigan, you name it, and never got stopped anywhere.

[Vattel]

7. I have been pulled over for no reason several times.

Why? Driving while having purple hair/driving while male with long hair. Once I was surrounded by police as a burglary suspect. Needless to say, I was innocent (eventually they arrested a cop for the burglaries).

[pnwmom]

8. Purple hair is an option. Brown or black skin isn't. n/t

[Vattel]

10. It doesn't really matter whether it is an option or not.

Cops shouldn't violate rights. Period.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. But even more egregious

was a sitting-in-a-police-issued-car-while-being-a-3-star-black-Deputy-Police-Chief - in NYC of all places (he was the highest ranking black officer on the force at the time)!

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/plainclothes-officers-trouble-didn-recognize-off-duty-chief-article-1.327540

He was off-duty and wore his ID around his neck and it made no difference.



He was targeted, profiled, and harassed. A source exclaimed -

"How you can not know or recognize a chief in a department SUV with ID around his neck, I don't know," a police source said.

They saw his service revolver and demanded that he get out of the car and then argued with him about his ID badge!

"Stop and Frisk", which has not been mentioned in any of the threads that I have perused, has been the bane of our existence.

[raven mad]

11. DWB is not horribly out of control here - yet.

DWN (Driving While Native) more so. It doesn't matter - inequality and injustice anywhere affects all of us. K&R, and the very best to Rev. Sims.

K&R