Don’t Move or We’ll Shoot
By: Zachary Lecky
“Put your hands where we can see them, Don’t fucking move or we’ll shoot.” A way too commonly used phrase by the police when stopping and searching African American men. In many instances this display of force is unwarranted. A group of friends standing on the corner, sitting in the backseat or any instance in which the police believe you to be “suspicious” leaves you open to this phrase. Living in an urban city, your chances of this encounter raise greatly. When you live in the hood you are basically waiting for it to be your turn. When a police watch tower is placed five blocks away from your house the constant ideal of “it’s just a matter of time” is very prevalent.
The police and the hood have a very one-sided relationship. The hood, streets, ghetto — whatever one may want to refer to it as — is a go-to for the police when the want to find crime. Many police officers are stationed to patrol the area nonstop. This is problematic in many forms: There could be crimes happening in numerous places, and having police positioned in one area limits the ability to be effective. The criminal might notice the two cops constantly on Lexington Ave. and just bring his business elsewhere. The “good” citizens who live in the hood due to financial restrictions are subject to constant police presence. If you surveyed them, many would say the sense of being watched constantly doesn’t have them feeling much safer.
In “The New Jim Crow” Michelle Alexander discusses how the targeting of the ghetto is flawed. “Subjecting people to stops and searches because they live in “high crime” ghettos cannot be said to be truly race-neutral, given that the ghetto itself was constructed to contain and control groups of people defined by race.” The ghetto has an open resentment for the police due to the practices employed by them that has lead to minimal results in a lot of cases.
“On Feb. 25, 2014, the ACLU-NJ released a report analyzing the first six months of stop-and-frisk data from the Newark Police Department there was 12,029 stops and 2,655 arrests and summonses with African Americans representing 73% of that.”
Datausa.io states, “The ethnic composition of the population of Newark, NJ is composed of 137,090 Black residents (48.6%), 100,432 Hispanic residents (35.6%), 30,495 White residents (10.8%), 5,938 Asian residents (2.11%), and 4,424 Other residents (1.57%).” African Americans resulted in 73% despite only being 48% of the cities population.
Newark is a 20 minute across the Route 1–9 from where I live in Jersey City. I live in the “hood”, which is under constant people presence. Jersey City is under heavy gentrification. Downtown Jersey City is a mini-New York, with people rich but not rich enough for the city moving there, and only a PATH ride away from the city. Journal Square and the Heights is under constant change with stores coming in. West Side is improving. Then there is Greenville and the Hill, which represents the hood. Living in the hood goes with a target on your back from both potential enemies and your supposed protectors. The spidey-like sense the police appear to have has led to this “hunch.” They can see danger from a mile away and know the culprit just by identifying them. Out of the thousands of searches that happen what happens when the cops are wrong? Alexander states, “Police usually release the innocent on the street often without a ticket, citation, or even an apology so their stories are rarely heard in court.” I wouldn’t get my sorry.
One summer night after wings at Hooters, we head back to Wegman Ave. A police car stays in between Wegman and Stegman patrolling the local corner store. We are five young men. Four African American and one white. After a fun night at Hooters, we don’t want to end the night and decide to head to one of the friends house for some drinks, cards and NBA Playoffs. One male heads into the car he drove over, we are headed to his home so he will lead the way and we will follow in the car behind him. Once we get behind his car we flash the lights and hook the horn to signal for him to go. He lives Downtown in a cut block so we follow the lead.
Unknown to us at the moment, an undercover car would be following us from the Greenville section to Downtown — it’s a 10 minute ride. They had ample amount of time and chances to pull us over — even though we didn’t do anything wrong in the first place — but they declined to.
We reach the destination. The windows are rolled down and my facedown texting someone at the moment, as I look to the left to open the door. I hear, “Put your hands where we can see them, Don’t fucking move or we’ll shoot” as guns are drawn next to our heads. I drop my phone and me and my friend Petey put our hands on the back of the head rests. The driver, who is white, and passenger, another African American, don’t get guns pulled next to them they looked puzzled.
“We are going to open the door to search for drugs, don’t move.” “We followed you for 30 blocks.” “What are you doing here?” Three cop cars follow up to secure both entries to the block. The driver whose house we were going to was able to pull into his gated driveway when he noticed us getting stopped and searched. “I live here,” he screams. The neighbors on the block probably noticing a multitude of white, blue and red lights beaming through their windows begin to come outside to see the commotion.
This is the embarrassment that many people would fear. They might just assume the police are in the right. In the hood, many people abide by innocent into proven guilty due to the high number of targeting, and will constantly scream for their loved ones to be freed. In downtown the same rules might not apply. I wasn’t embarrassed it was only a matter of time until this would happen to me. This notion has been embedded into the minds of African American men. It’s a blessing and curse. Unfortunately we have to expect this to happen, but it has prepared us for the inevitable.
The house owner runs out saying, “Oh my God, what happened? Is my son in trouble?” Only then do the police believed he lived here and we really just wanted to go in a have fun. Will we get an apology or an explanation as to why we were follow and subject to this humiliation? Of course not. The cops would try and fail to ease the tension. One officer says, “Are you guys brothers? You guys look alike with the glasses,” while the next officers says, “A bunch of guys. Where are the females? This is a sausage fest.” After having a gun pointed to my head I guess I wasn’t in the mood for corny jokes.
They drove off and this has stuck with me ever since. Examples like this are far too often. Things must change.
The dynamic between the hood and police is fractured beyond belief.
