STUDYING WHILE BLACK: Yale Student, NYT Columnist’s Son, Pretty Obvious Criminal to Area Cops
Why was a gun drawn first? Why was he not immediately told why he was being detained? Why not ask for ID first?
What if my son had panicked under the stress, having never had a gun pointed at him before, and made what the officer considered a “suspicious” movement? Had I come close to losing him? Triggers cannot be unpulled. Bullets cannot be called back.
Anyway, we are very sad this happened to Tahj Blow and we are extremely happy that he wasn’t shot dead, and we hope that everyone reads Charles Blow’s column about it, and everything is terrible.
More: Black Yale Student, NYT Columnist’s Son, Pretty Obvious Criminal to Area Cops
From Charles Blow (NYT):
What if my son had panicked under the stress, having never had a gun pointed at him before, and made what the officer considered a “suspicious” movement? Had I come close to losing him? Triggers cannot be unpulled. Bullets cannot be called back.
My son was unarmed, possessed no plunder, obeyed all instructions, answered all questions, did not attempt to flee or resist in any way.
This is the scenario I have always dreaded: my son at the wrong end of a gun barrel, face down on the concrete. I had always dreaded the moment that we would share stories about encounters with the police in which our lives hung in the balance, intergenerational stories of joining the inglorious “club.”