ATL Redline, Justice, Police

Black Man Calls Cops, Is Shot By Cops, While Criminal Escapes

White people call the cops when they need to. Black people call the cops only when they have to.

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When searching for stock images of "police" in "Indiana," 90% of the photos included race cars. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

When searching for stock images of “police” in “Indiana,” 90% of the photos included race cars. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

I have a lot of white friends and when I bitch about the police some of them say “well, but when you are in trouble, you’ll call the cops and be thankful when come.”

That conversation always spins off into a discussion of “white privilege,” because the surest sign that you haven’t thought through what it’s like to be black in America is that you think calling the cops is the safe and responsible move.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t call the cops if I was faced with a threat. In fact, I have. I’m saying that calling the cops, for me and many other black men, is a terrifying game of risk-assessment where the penalty for being wrong is death. You have to weigh the threat posed by the potential criminal against the threat posed by inviting cops who don’t know you within shooting range of your person.

It’s not a decision black people can make lightly. Because when things go wrong, this happens (from the New York Daily News):

Early Tuesday in Indianapolis, an African-American woman was being carjacked in front of her home in her working class neighborhood. She ran back in the house, told her husband, who is also black, and they called the police to report the robbery. That seemed to be the right and safe thing to do.

As the police pulled up, the husband, who was later identified as 48-year-old Carl Williams, opened the garage to their home and was immediately shot in the gut by police.

Williams is in intensive care. The alleged carjacker? Police are still looking for him. He fled the scene while the police were busy gunning down the black man who called for help.

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If you’re black, calling the cops is like calling in a dragon to eat all the mosquitos. It might work. It might also burn down your house and steal all your gold. You’ve really gotta ask yourself how big of a threat Zika is before you make the call.

In my experience, the cost/benefit analysis that African-Americans must undertake before inviting an interaction with the police is a thing that some white Americans have real difficulty understanding or appreciating. Of course African-Americans need and want cops policing their neighborhoods and providing services. It’s just that we also want to not be harassed, profiled, brutalized, or shot while opening our garage doors.

Those aren’t inconsistent desires, and they shouldn’t be either/or propositions. When police react to criticism of their tactics with “well, maybe we just won’t do our jobs and protect your neighborhood,” they sound like petulant children who think throwing their food is a good way to get out of dinner. Cops need to be able to serve African-American communities, without shooting innocent African-Americans, at the same time. If that job is too hard for them, they should find another career.

White people call the cops when they need to. Black people call the cops only when they have to.

Black Indianapolis man shot by cops after calling police to report robbery [NY Daily News]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He drove around the Speedway district in Indianapolis with a white girl in his car once, and only once. It didn’t go well for anybody involved.

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