"Feelings came quickly then to Thorne, who’s Black: rage that his son was being arrested. Humiliation that the teenager had to watch his dad get handcuffed while the whole neighborhood looked on. Confusion about how viewing a house with his real estate agent on a Sunday afternoon could lead to a half-dozen police officers pointing guns at them.... Thorne and his son were touring a home Sunday with real estate agent Eric Brown, who’s also Black, in Wyoming, Mich., when police suddenly surrounded the house with guns drawn. The officers were responding to a neighbor’s 911 call about a break in. They ordered the three out of the house, handcuffed them and put them in separate vehicles."
From "A Black Army vet toured a house with his real estate agent and teen. Police surrounded the home and handcuffed them" (WaPo).
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18 comments:
will liz cheney ride this to a victorious reelection?
Interesting details from a more local news source: “ Almost two weeks before the incident on July 24, a man was arrested for breaking into the home on Sharon Avenue SW, WDPS said in a statement. His car, a black Mercedes, had been parked in front of the empty home several times. Officers were dispatched to the house and arrested him, officials say. On Aug. 2 around 2:15 p.m., the Kent County Dispatch Center received a call saying the man was back.” https://www.woodtv.com/news/kent-county/wyoming-police-release-video-of-officers-cuffing-realtor/
There’s something wrong with this story. I don’t believe it. Stories like this rarely turn out to be true.
Maybe they thought it was Professor Gates.
Mr. Thorne should buy that house. They have great police protection there and he'd have a good neighbor (skin color unknown) with whom he could easily laugh about this misunderstanding and become fast friends if he chose to do so.
Read the article rrsafety linked above. Why is the WaPo trying to drive fear and division by twisting this incident into something it's not?
I don't agree with Bob Boyd. If I were handcuffed while being shown a house by a realtor, there's no "misunderstanding" that I'd consider justifiable.
Even if a black person broke in two weeks before, I wouldn't be satisfied that it's OK to suspect me, my kid, and my realtor because we're black.
If the story is true (and that's a big if, considering the source), this is unjust.
They need to work on their Welcome Wagon approach in that community.
@ steve_g
I didn't say it was okay that they were handcuffed. I don't like that either, but the cops do handcuff and detain people, until they figure out who's who and what's what, all the time. It's what they're trained to do. It's department policy in many places. They don't just do it to black people. It's their SOP. Maybe it shouldn't be, but that's a separate issue. Personally, I'm opposed to it on general principles, but I also admit that's easy for me to say since I'm not out there on the street.
It was clearly a misunderstanding. The neighbor called the cops because the car was black, not because the people were black.
There's no evidence the neighbor had bad intentions. On the contrary. He or she was trying to do the right thing and keep a promise he'd made to someone he may have known for years and been friends with. How is that bad? Should he have just said, "It's not my business" closed his drapes and possibly let his neighbor's house be robbed? He decided to call the proper authorities and let them investigate, which they did.
Mistakes happen all the time. Sometimes we are hurt by them to one degree or another. That's just a fact of life. All we can do is choose how to react to them. Will we make things worse or make them better?
Have any of You been held at gun point, by the police; and ordered to the ground, handcuffed, put in a police car for 20 minutes... All in front of a crowd a people... Then let go, and told my the police "Sorry, we thought you were involved in a crime?
I have (Campus town, Ames Ia 1992). I inadvertedly had walked through the middle of a robbery, and the policeman thought that i Might have been one of the robbers. A policeman Thought i was armed; And while the Policeman did not shoot, he told me that the reason he did NOT; was because i fell to the ground (armed spread) IMMEADATELY when ordered.
Once the situation was controlled (robbers aprehended, which took the 20 minutes), the police asked the store owner about me, and the store owner said (bless his heart)
"Who's he?" And the police apologized to me, and thanked me for my cooperation.
Protip: Do what the Police SAY, THEY HAVE GUNS
serious question
What SHOLD the police do, when receiving a 911 call about ANOTHER breakin, by ANOTHER group of men? Blow it off? Come out tommorow? Casually walk up, and see if they get shot?
Police feel MUCH better about things, if you're handcuffed. Just let them handcuff you; trust me! It makes things better
[Ames police have handcuffed me at least THREE different times, only One of which resuled in charges]
Gilbar,
In 1968,i was driving my brand new car with temp cardboard tags north on I87 near Saratoga NY. I got stopped for speeding. Nothing excessive perhap 10 miles over.
I gave the state Trooper my license and went to get the registration out of the glove compartment. He yelled "freeze'and I looked up to see a gun pointed at my head.
I did and moved very slowly until he felt safe.
There was something hinky in the way I moved that had scared him.
Did he overreact? Perhaps but maybe not.
John Henry
Also, the trooper did seem to feel bad about it, apologized, explained how to act in the future (slow, explained moves etc) and let me off with a warning.
The WOOD-TV story is worth watching. The cops get the folks to come out with their hands up, and they put the cuffs on. The realtor identifies himself, the cops explain the misunderstanding and apologize. The earlier incident is referred to in the explanation. These folks were not trespassing, but they were unexpectedly on the premises. Wyoming is the largest suburb of Grand Rapids, with 75,000 people (8% are black).
The question is left hanging: if the realtor and the clients had been white--driving the same car--would they have been treated the same way in Wyoming MI? But as we saw in the US Capitol Building with Ashli Babbitt, sometimes trespassing turns into a capital crime, even for white people.
The best part of the story is that every participant lived to talk about it. But headlines like SITUATION DEFUSED WITH NO INJURIES OR DEATH don’t sell clicks or papers. Nice to have the backstory added in. Too bad the source article Althouse used left out relevant context but that is current journalistic practice.
I'm with Gilbar,
My spouse has also been held at gunpoint by multiple officers and handcuffed and put in the back of a police car. He matched the description of a bank robber. He's white. It never made the WaPo.
Now we see how white liberals keep their neighborhoods lily white despite their pious platitudes about race. You see a black realtor with a black client, you call the cops and the cops come running with guns and handcuffs. That’ll teach ‘em.
Inexperienced officer hyped up that they were going to break the big crime in the county. Didn't stop and think. And were don't know if the 911 caller embellished making the police even more jumpy. A house for sale, Mercedes parked out front, people walking about inside. Worth an inquiry but not a guns drawn, handcuffing cooperating "suspects" reaction. But it is the risk, running in to the inexperienced officers, or ones who have been fed a mindset by a reporting person who embellishes the "danger".
And that is the danger, especially if you carry a firearm. You are going about your daily life, cops roll in on you with a 911 caller having reported a mad dog killer or something.
And police use there being granted permission by the rulers to handcuff and detain to humiliate and abuse. They themselves, as well as their political masters, react poorly when this happens to them because they know this. But it is an accepted abuse that is "justified" by boilerplate. They only way to win is to accept that this is often used to humiliate and not get your self worth from how police treat you. Look at how the FBI do their raids on the disfavored, show up in full tactical gear with CNN oddly aware, to pick up a guy at 5 am. Lights waking up the neighbors. The scandal, the horror, the humiliation. All part of the process being the punishment.
The 911 caller did not know what the three people were doing in the house. The 911 dispatcher knew this. The 911 caller (probably) did know that the house was for sale and people would be coming to look at it while the owner was not there.
The police should have known all this behaved accordingly.
Heads should roll.
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