This is a story about a man visiting his son from India who was just taking a morning stroll in his son’s neighborhood. A neighbor called in to 911 because he was worried about a suspicious “black guy” who was “just walking around” (literally that’s all that caller could report).
Of course, this is a person visiting from another country and does not speak english, so cops who approached him and tried to pat him down (which is completely not necessary, AT ALL) he just tries to walk away, in which they SLAM him to the ground and partially paralyze him. Instead of using better judgement and realizing that the whole situation is inappropriate.
But racism isn’t rational.
This happened in Madison, which is about an hour from me. The son, who worked hard to get a great job, had just flown his father over to vists and I think stay with them to pay him back for being such a great dad. Like seriously, I think he’d been here less than two weeks and this happens to him. Now the son doesn’t even feel safe in his own neighborhood anymore.
I mean good news is at least the cop who slammed him down was fired and is being charged, so at least he won’t go unpunished. But of course this is Alabama so there’s an Indiegogo campaign up to raise money for the cop.
I didn’t know about the indiegogo but I should’ve known. Apparently the page says stuff like “this guy just made a mistake, and we all make mistakes”
No, this wasn’t just a MISTAKE. This was inappropriate use of force. This was nearly fatal levels of cultural insensitivity from a state employee. This was an abuse of power. This was systemic racism and a criminalization of “outsiders” This was more than a mistake.