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| Daniel Pantaleo Was Fired. We’re Still Afraid for Our Lives. | |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| Last week, while the officer who had held Eric Garner in a banned chokehold as he said “I can’t breathe” about a dozen times was still employed by the New York Police Department, I was thousands of miles away, in Arizona, where I found myself terrified by a different set of law enforcement officials. | Last week, while the officer who had held Eric Garner in a banned chokehold as he said “I can’t breathe” about a dozen times was still employed by the New York Police Department, I was thousands of miles away, in Arizona, where I found myself terrified by a different set of law enforcement officials. |
| Returning from visiting a friend near the Mexico border, I was driving up State Route 90 when all northbound traffic was diverted into a giant tent, where officers from Customs and Border Protection were performing cursory inspections of all vehicles. A menacing German shepherd was being led around each and every car, presumably sniffing for narcotics. | Returning from visiting a friend near the Mexico border, I was driving up State Route 90 when all northbound traffic was diverted into a giant tent, where officers from Customs and Border Protection were performing cursory inspections of all vehicles. A menacing German shepherd was being led around each and every car, presumably sniffing for narcotics. |
| I was experiencing one of the legal checkpoints that the agency uses to search and potentially seize any vehicle within 100 miles of a border, without what would normally be called probable cause. And while I didn’t have any contraband, I felt a rising sense of panic as the officers and dog got closer to my car. | I was experiencing one of the legal checkpoints that the agency uses to search and potentially seize any vehicle within 100 miles of a border, without what would normally be called probable cause. And while I didn’t have any contraband, I felt a rising sense of panic as the officers and dog got closer to my car. |
| As a kid, I often saw my father pulled over and harassed by the police. And as an adult black man, I’ve been threatened by the police myself. As a journalist, I’ve reported on and read research about how — though most murdered Americans are killed by someone they know — about one-third who are killed by strangers are killed by the police. And while I’m a United States citizen, the Supreme Court’s ruling that allows for indefinite detention of noncitizen migrants has made me fearfully wonder, Just how could I prove I am a citizen and entitled to a lawyer and other rights if I was arrested by Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement? | As a kid, I often saw my father pulled over and harassed by the police. And as an adult black man, I’ve been threatened by the police myself. As a journalist, I’ve reported on and read research about how — though most murdered Americans are killed by someone they know — about one-third who are killed by strangers are killed by the police. And while I’m a United States citizen, the Supreme Court’s ruling that allows for indefinite detention of noncitizen migrants has made me fearfully wonder, Just how could I prove I am a citizen and entitled to a lawyer and other rights if I was arrested by Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement? |
| To mitigate some of my fears, I’ve taken to having my passport with me most places in the country. In Arizona I kept it in my backpack as I drove. And as I waited for the authorities and dog to search my car, I took it out of my bag and placed it on the seat next to me, beside the rental car agreement I already had in plain sight, just in case I got pulled over, as I almost always do when I rent a car. | To mitigate some of my fears, I’ve taken to having my passport with me most places in the country. In Arizona I kept it in my backpack as I drove. And as I waited for the authorities and dog to search my car, I took it out of my bag and placed it on the seat next to me, beside the rental car agreement I already had in plain sight, just in case I got pulled over, as I almost always do when I rent a car. |
| Not that a passport would have saved me from a long detention necessarily — ICE recently held a citizen for a month — and it wouldn’t have saved me from an officer’s bullet. But as I’ve written before, whenever I am near the police or even think I might be, I do anything I can so that I won’t have to put my hands in my pockets or into a bag or give them an excuse to say I might have been reaching for something dangerous. | Not that a passport would have saved me from a long detention necessarily — ICE recently held a citizen for a month — and it wouldn’t have saved me from an officer’s bullet. But as I’ve written before, whenever I am near the police or even think I might be, I do anything I can so that I won’t have to put my hands in my pockets or into a bag or give them an excuse to say I might have been reaching for something dangerous. |
| The dog was walked around my car and an officer smiled at me inconclusively. Cautiously, I asked if everything was O.K., and he told me I was free to go. I drove off. I realized my heart was pounding and my breathing had unconsciously become very shallow. | The dog was walked around my car and an officer smiled at me inconclusively. Cautiously, I asked if everything was O.K., and he told me I was free to go. I drove off. I realized my heart was pounding and my breathing had unconsciously become very shallow. |
| I have a passport and citizenship yet still have this reaction, so I can only imagine how certain migrant communities — particularly Latinx communities subject to racist targeting — cope with the threat of detention or deportation by an immigration system that can stop anyone, anytime, and make judgments without due process. | I have a passport and citizenship yet still have this reaction, so I can only imagine how certain migrant communities — particularly Latinx communities subject to racist targeting — cope with the threat of detention or deportation by an immigration system that can stop anyone, anytime, and make judgments without due process. |
| But as a black journalist who has reported as police officers lobbed tear gas and used sound cannons in Baltimore, Ferguson and New York, and simply as a black person living in America, my experience in Arizona reminded me of how very real the stress of living under occupation is for black and brown people. Such stress, of course, takes a mental health toll and likely contributes to rates of hypertension and heart disease that create “John Henryism,” a term Dr. Sherman James, an epidemiologist, coined while trying to understand why black men die younger than white men. | But as a black journalist who has reported as police officers lobbed tear gas and used sound cannons in Baltimore, Ferguson and New York, and simply as a black person living in America, my experience in Arizona reminded me of how very real the stress of living under occupation is for black and brown people. Such stress, of course, takes a mental health toll and likely contributes to rates of hypertension and heart disease that create “John Henryism,” a term Dr. Sherman James, an epidemiologist, coined while trying to understand why black men die younger than white men. |
| Five years after Mr. Garner was killed, it is still painfully, mortally obvious that we’re justified in our daily anxiety. | Five years after Mr. Garner was killed, it is still painfully, mortally obvious that we’re justified in our daily anxiety. |
| After leaving Arizona last week, I was quickly reminded how such fears of the police do not exist merely in our heads. A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that police use of force is a leading cause of death for young men of color overall and the sixth leading cause for young black men. One in 1,000 black men and boys can expect to be killed by the police, making them about 2.5 times more likely to experience this fate than white men and boys. | After leaving Arizona last week, I was quickly reminded how such fears of the police do not exist merely in our heads. A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that police use of force is a leading cause of death for young men of color overall and the sixth leading cause for young black men. One in 1,000 black men and boys can expect to be killed by the police, making them about 2.5 times more likely to experience this fate than white men and boys. |
| The same study found that black, American Indian and Alaska Native women face a higher risk than white women, with American Indian and Alaska Native being up to twice as likely to be killed by the police as white women. | The same study found that black, American Indian and Alaska Native women face a higher risk than white women, with American Indian and Alaska Native being up to twice as likely to be killed by the police as white women. |
| “This study shows us that police killings are deeply systematic, with race, gender and age patterning this excess cause of death,” Michael Esposito, one of the study’s authors, said. | “This study shows us that police killings are deeply systematic, with race, gender and age patterning this excess cause of death,” Michael Esposito, one of the study’s authors, said. |
| On Monday, news broke that the New York City police commissioner had finally fired Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who had used the banned chokehold that led to Mr. Garner’s death, a death that the medical examiner deemed a homicide. It took five years — a half decade during which Eric Garner’s daughter Erica died at just 27 years old from a heart attack after vigorously pursuing justice for her father. During which Mr. Pantaleo continued to draw paycheck after paycheck. | On Monday, news broke that the New York City police commissioner had finally fired Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who had used the banned chokehold that led to Mr. Garner’s death, a death that the medical examiner deemed a homicide. It took five years — a half decade during which Eric Garner’s daughter Erica died at just 27 years old from a heart attack after vigorously pursuing justice for her father. During which Mr. Pantaleo continued to draw paycheck after paycheck. |
| I don’t know if white readers can comprehend how stressful police stops are for black and brown folks in the United States. I don’t know if any amount of writing, or epidemiological research, or news accounts can convince white readers that a police encounter is a dangerous, potentially family-separating or life-ending event for black and brown folks. | I don’t know if white readers can comprehend how stressful police stops are for black and brown folks in the United States. I don’t know if any amount of writing, or epidemiological research, or news accounts can convince white readers that a police encounter is a dangerous, potentially family-separating or life-ending event for black and brown folks. |
| But to brown and black readers: Know that the fears you have are not merely in your imagination. As white supremacists grow bolder under President Trump, and as technology allows for ever-more-expansive surveillance of intimate areas of life, policing still haunts and threatens us as much as it did the day Mr. Garner stopped breathing. | But to brown and black readers: Know that the fears you have are not merely in your imagination. As white supremacists grow bolder under President Trump, and as technology allows for ever-more-expansive surveillance of intimate areas of life, policing still haunts and threatens us as much as it did the day Mr. Garner stopped breathing. |
| Steven W. Thrasher holds the Daniel H. Renberg Chair, for social justice in reporting, and is an assistant professor of journalism and core faculty member of the Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University. | Steven W. Thrasher holds the Daniel H. Renberg Chair, for social justice in reporting, and is an assistant professor of journalism and core faculty member of the Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University. |
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