In the Wake of Ferguson, Black Teens and Kansas City Police Meet to Discuss Issues of Trust
Their teacher at Center Alternative School chose them to reflect on the meeting because they were particularly articulate, future-minded teens.
He didn’t know that one of them — 17-year-old Tyrese Gully — would tell how he’d been pulled over while driving his mother’s Mercedes alone on eastbound Interstate 70, no reason given, and allowed to go on only after they called his mother to check his story.
Or that Corey Smith, 17, would tell of being stopped for no violation, just driving his sleeping sister home after dropping off his mother in his south Kansas City neighborhood following a long drive from Chicago at 3 a.m.
And even 15-year-old Donavion Gleese told of the trouble that came when he was looking for snacks in a Grandview convenience store and turned to the security officer shadowing him and said, “Why are you following me?”
Three teenagers, all three black, all three with nervous encounters with police.
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