Posted on 10/31/2015 7:24:49 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism school at the University of North Texas, is used to taking a walk at daybreak. But rain delayed her exercise regimen until later Saturday morning when she began traversing the streets of her well-to-do Corinth neighborhood.
POLICE VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_OvluMqxI
But soon “flashing lights and sirens from a police vehicle†paused her walk, she wrote in a column for the Dallas Morning News.
Bland was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and she’s black.
“Like most African-Americans, I am familiar with the phrase ‘driving while black,’ but was I really being stopped for walking on the street in my own neighborhood?†she asked.
“Yes,†she answered. “In the words of Sal Ruibal, ‘Walking while black is a crime in many jurisdictions. May God have mercy on our nation.’â€
Bland said she asked the officers if there was a problem but didn’t “remember getting a decent answer before one of the officers asked me where I lived and for identification.â€
More from Bland:
I remember saying something like, “Around the corner. This is my neighborhood, and I’m a taxpayer who pays a lot of taxes.†As for the I.D. question, how many Americans typically carry I.D. with them on their morning walk? Do you realize I bought the hoodie I was wearing after completing the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education in 2014? Do you realize I have hosted gatherings for family, friends, faculty, staff and students in my home? Not once was a police officer called. To those officers, my education or property-owner status didn’t matter. One officer captured my address and date of birth.
Bland figured she “was simply a brown face in an affluent neighborhood. I told the police I didn’t like to walk in the rain, and one of them told me, ‘My dog doesn’t like to walk in the rain.’ Ouch!â€
She added that “for safety’s sake†she used her iPhone to take a photo of the officers and their patrol car’s license plate, as Bland didn’t want to end up like “the dozens of others who have died while in police custody.†Within hours after posting about the incident on Facebook, Bland said more than 100 friends spread the news across the country.
“You are now in the company of Henry Louis Gates and others with the same experience,†she said one of her former students wrote her. “We must stop racial profiling.â€
Bland added that she stopped by the mayor’s house and asked him, “Do I look like a criminal?†She continued, “Mayor Bill Heidemann said no and shook his head in disbelief. I appreciate the mayor being a good neighbor, but why should he need to verify that I am not a menace to society?â€
But after Corinth Police Chief Debra Walthall caught wind of the incident, she wrote a response, which was in the second part of the Dallas Morning News piece, and said that the encounter was about Bland’s safety, not race — and that dashcam video from the officer’s patrol car proves it.
There sure as hell are laws against walking in the road. What kind of idiot are you?
Yeah, someone living in a trailer park is calling me an idiot.
Don’t you have like 50 cats to take care of before bingo.
I understand you are testy from flying around all night. Why not eat another snickers bar.
I am sure there are some negroes you can harass in your neighborhood.
I went to the link, clicked to play the video and a short while later, Waterfox browser popped up a window reporting a non-responsive script on the page, and Waterfox then locked up. I had to quit Waterfox.
I think that website is doing some stuff that isn’t kosher.
Yeah, i’m calling you an idiot, and a juvenile coward, because of your stupid and insipid comments on this thread.
You must be tough. On the Internet.
Ooohhhhh. I am scared of the trailer park bigot.
Lol, grow up, and keep on walking in the middle of the street!
Teapartycrusaders.com was the site which the original poster cited. I think it did a bad job by only showing the first half of the Blaze article it copied and so only presenting one side of the story.
And I thought our own Christie Whitman in NJ killed it frisking teens with the State Police!
No prior call evident
And there actually is a Texas law against walking in the road, if sidewalks are available.
Also says to walk on left side against traffic, like pretty much everyone already knows.
I walk in our quiet road numerous times, tons of people do, and I’ve never been stopped once.
We WERE actually rudely accosted by a homeowner once who asked what we were doing on “his” street, and demanded to see our ID’s! I told him the streets were public property and there’s no way I was going to show him ID.
I think the stop by the cops was strange, bikes ride on the street, same direction as the traffic, and that’s legal, why is a person walking the same direction illegal?
And I don’t think it’s mandatory that she produce ID. This wasn’t a Terry stop and she wasn’t legally required to produce her “papieren, bitte schoen!”
And the “xxx while Black,” that DOES happen. I know someone who is black, in a small town where she’s probably one of 50 black people, and that happens to her a lot...
Ed
In Texas there is. Look it up.
TEXAS TRANSPORTATION CODE
TITLE 7. VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC
SUBTITLE C. RULES OF THE ROAD
CHAPTER 552. PEDESTRIANS
Sec. 552.006. USE OF SIDEWALK. (a) A pedestrian may not walk along and on a roadway if an adjacent sidewalk is provided and is accessible to the pedestrian.
You are the second person today to dig up an argument from last week! Is it a full moon?
You win. Are you happy.
Can I leave your head now?
No. It's a conspiracy, obviously.
But seriously...you must expect to be challenged when making unsubstantiated claims on FR.
I don’t mind being challenged. Really.
It was just odd that two threads from a week ago spawned rebuttals today.
You seem reasonable.
The other guy cannot let go.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.