Often we hear stories about police racial harassment of minorities, often times black men. Those stories usually end with an arrest, sometimes that arrest includes the officers using non-lethal or even deadly force.
Dennis Stucky is an elderly disabled black man who had been working in an upper class Washington D.C. suburb for over 30 years doing odd jobs for the residents. Just about everyone in the neighborhood knew this gentleman, including the local police officers who patrol it.
On October 1, 2014 around 1 p.m. Stucky was in the neighborhood chatting with a gardener when a black female police officer saw him and decided to question him. She demanded that he tell her where he was coming from and why he was in the neighborhood. When Stucky protested his treatment,?he was ordered to get on the ground while she prepared to search him and his belongings.
Unfortunately for that officer, she decided to harass Stucky in front of Jody Westby’s home, Westby is a very successful attorney who had known Stucky for over 30 years. When Westby’s housekeeper saw Stucky being harassed and mistreated, she went to Westby to tell her what was happening.
Westby immediately went out to question the police officer, followed by her housekeeper with a cell phone camera.
When she questioned the officer as to the reason behind Mr. Stucky’s detention, the officer told her that she was questioning him in connection to a reported burglary. In a matter of seconds another patrol car pulls up to the scene driven by black male officer.
Westby walks over to that officer and asks him what address reported a robbery. The officer told her the address.
She informed him that he was on the wrong block and that address was in a different neighborhood. She vouched for Mr. Stucky and asked if he was free to go. She also told them that she was an attorney. The Officer in the patrol car said that he was free to leave, and so she went over to the curb and picked Mr. Stucky up and began to escort him into her home.
The humiliated black female officer tried to further detain both Westby and Stucky, in a final pathetic attempt to assert her control, but her admonishment was ignored as Westby calmly walked with Stucky toward her property. And told the officers for good measure,
“Just because he’s black, doesn’t mean he’s here to rob a house,”
“I’m an attorney and this is wrong. Now please leave our neighborhood. He works for us. He’s been in this neighborhood for 30 years.”
The officer is left in the middle of the street embarrassed, confused, unsure what to do with her taser now…
Okay let me say this.? I’m a 37 year old black man. Stop and imagine what would have happened if I approached a black female police officer and started questioning her about why she’s harassing my elderly black handyman? And supposing that I’m not put in cuffs or worse, imagine if I were to approach the police vehicle demanding the address of the “so called” reported burglary? Do you think that officer would be forthright in giving me that or any information?
Yes I can hear the conservatives rationalizing, calling me a “race baiter” for saying that. They are probably sayings stuff like, “well a white guy would have been arrested too!” There’s nothing you can say to that kind of willful ignorance. So I won’t address it.
What Mrs. Westby did was something that many white Americans can do when they see injustice, racial harassment or police brutality. They can speak up and be heard, get involved. Most of the time police officers will quickly assess the fact that they probably shouldn’t abuse someone who could make trouble for them.
Here are 3 videos, the first is the original video, the second is an MSNBC interview with Westby and Al Sharpton, and the 3rd is a commentary from comedian Keven Craft.
