If there was not a double standard then we wouldn't have to ask this question. The real problem is why are we still asking if this would happen if he was white, and unless you have ever been mistreated because of what you look like than you have no idea what this issue is about
Once again YOUR bias is showing.
I am white and it did happen to me.
My house is 200 feet from the street and I have a heavily wooded lot including the front yard. The neighbors can't see my house. I have a secruity system as I travelled a lot 150- 200 night out of state. I was gone on a business trip for about 2 weeks came home midday. Drove in the basement garage and went upstairs. I dropped by bags in the bedroom and went to the front door to check for delivery packages. Picked them up and brought them in the house. My arms were full so I couldn't use my hands to close the door completely behind me. I kicked it but it apparently didn't latch.
I took the packages to my office then picked up the wrappings and took them out back and burned them in my fire pit. Walked back in the house and was confronted by a policeman with his hand on his gun, strap unsnapped. He asked who I was I told him, "The Owner. This is my house. Is there a problem?" He didn't acknowledge my question. He identified himself, I could see the badge on the uniform, the nametag on his shirt, and the 9 mm on his hip. Then he repeated his request for my I.D.
Instinctively but stupidly I reached for my wallet in my back pocket. He had his gun out in a flash. I froze. I didn't scream at him. I didn't accuse him of racism. Yeah, he was a black man in my house with a gun aimed at me. And I hadn't done anything wrong. What right did he have to be in my house?
I calmly said, "IF it's OK with you I'm going to turn around slowly, counterclockwise, so you can see I have my hand on my wallet. I'm not going to move my hands." He said, OK. I did. He told me to take out my ID. I did. He radioed in to dispatch, "I'm in the house with the owner. There is no robbery. False alarm." He told me to relax as he put his gun away.
When I came in the house I had taken too much time getting all my bags from a 2 week trip out of the car before disarming my security system. The local audible siren malfunctioned and didn't go off. But the system had sent an alarm to the security company who reported an unauthorized entry through a basement garage door to local law enforcement.
When the cop arrived he didn't see a car. The car was in the basement garage. The garage door were tinted by the prior owner to prevent burglars from looking in. The cop went to the front door and found it ajar. He opened the door and announced himself. I didn't hear him as I was outside burning the package wrappings. He entered and found his way to the kitchen as I came in the backdoor.
Until I identified myself I was a suspected burglar in the act. I thanked the cop for his actions and apologized for reaching my hand behind my back out of his line of sight causing him concern. He apologized for pulling his gun. I told him it wasn't necessary. My actions precipitated his.
I have two nephew who are cops in another state. I once asked them in a situation with a cop what's the best thing I can do to make the cop (the guy with a gun) feel non-threatened. They both replied, "Show your hands." I had done that. I held them out to my sides, not outstretched ready to be frisked, but enought to show they were empty and far enough from my body to reach a concealed weapon. But when I reached for my wallet to get my I.D. I could easily have been reaching for a weapon in my
After the cop left I called the security systems to get the audible siren problem fixed then I wrote a letter to the chief of police commending his man for his diligence and professionalism. I hand delivered the letter.
I could have lost my cool and screamed at the cop. I found it embarrasing hearing the talking heads on TV justify the homeowner's actions because he was tired from travel. Unlike Gates, my cop wasn't outside the door asking for I.D. He was in MY house and I hadn't invited him. I hadn't let him in.
I wasn't angry and didn't cite the constititution, a man's home is his castle, remind him he works for me, or threaten to have his job, or threaten a lawsuit. I was thankful he responded alone to an alarm condition protecting my property while possibly putting his life in jeopardy. I was thankful he acted appropriately in checking for a burglar and checking I.D. on the stranger he encountered in an alarm condition. And I was thankful he didn't shot me when I reached for my wallet.
By jason's logic I should have been angry and screaming. In college I was pulled over in broad daylight on a major highway. I wasn't speeding; I was in the slow lane. I hadn't failed to use a signal because I hadn't changed lanes for several miles. Responding to the flashing lights I put on my turn signal and pull onto the right shoulder. I was in a convertible, top down. Wasn't smoking. Hadn't been driving erratically, no cell phone, no passenger in the car. I wasn't too close to the car in front of me either. I was baffled at the stop.
He came up and asked for license and registration. I gave him the license and told him the registration was in the glove compartment. As I leaned over to the passenger side, opened it, and reached in I heard the distinct click of a revolver being cocked. I turned my head slowly and looked back into the mouth of the largest cannon I had even seen. I froze and refused to move. I politely told him he could get the registration himself. He told me to proceed. I refused as long as he had his gun cocked and pointed at the back of my head. I told him to call for backup if I was so threatening looking. He finally moved around to the other side of the car where he could see my hand in the glove compartment holding a single piece of paper, the registration. He uncocked the gun and stopped pointing it at me. He took the registration and confirmed it by radio that I was the legal owner.
Turned out he pulled me over because I "looked" too young to own that car. He had run my plates before pulling me over. The license that matched the registration was for an 18 year old, me. Didn't matter to him. He though he had a joy rider. He told me that. He told me somebody so young couldn't own a car like that. I told him the truth. My brother-in-law had bought the car a few months earlier and had lost his license. The car was going to be repossed, I needed a car for college so I took over the payments at my brother-in-law's suggestion, and had the title transferred. Simple as that.
So yeah, jason, I've looked down the cocked barrel of a gun pointed at my face - when I had done absolutely nothing wrong except be young. I have justification to hate cops and defy them, don't I? "They had no right to do that to me."
Sorry, I don't hate all cops for the action of that one. I still think that one was a jerk and that the one I "met" in my house is more typical of other cops I've met on the job in my lifetime. Guys with tough jobs make critical decisions in stressful situations. Sometimes with their lives and twice with mine own life hanging in the balance.
The professor in this current situation is the one with all the advanced degrees. He's the one with the smarts yet he acted like a redneck bubba when he was asked to simply provide I.D. to a cop responding to a burglary call.
MLK said he dreamed of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. I never thought MLK meant that to be one sided.
There's a cop in Cambridge who wonders why he was judged AND is being judged on the color of his skin and not the content of his character.