Earlier this month a black woman was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed in front of her children by a white police officer after being stopped for a simple speeding ticket.
Takara Williams is polite while talking to the white officer. North Carolina Officer JC Carter is polite when he comes back from his motorcycle radio to tell her to give him her car keys.
This is when Williams becomes upset. She says she wants to call her grandfather who lives just down the road, the officer walks around the car to the driver's side and opens the car door. He has already threatened her with arrest (in a polite voice) if she doesn't obey massa and hand over the car keys sans any real explanation.
Bodycam video was just after 15 minutes and 45 seconds
by the time he asked her for the keys.
He says its for his own safety.
He says he's taking the tags off the car
for some reason.
Williams asked the officer why again and again -- which I would NOT have done unless I was white --especially if I lived in the south. And if I was white, I would have expected him to answer me fully and with respect.
But Williams in black and female and young and in the south. She is not safe.
Inside 25 seconds Officer Carter is threatening Williams with arrest and has his hands on her. It is at this point that a black woman, that was driving by, starts filming Carter's arrest of Williams and this unnecessary arrest becomes public.
As violent as white police officers can get when defied for any reason, Williams could have been battered and broken.
As it was the white officer, wrestled her to the ground and laid her on her face, put his hands all over her as he frisked her, sat on her back and cuffed her in front of her children.
TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS
He couldn't let her call her grandfather about her grandfather's car.
This entire episode happened because the officer didn't feel like explaining that he was going to take the tags off the car (because...the address wasn't changed for more than a year? At the beginning of the video, you hear Williams saying they'd moved a year ago.)
When you're a white man you don't have to explain anything to a n-word, especially if you're white man with a badge.
I'll never be able to prove it, but the only reason he even began to explain why he created a situation where she would be resisting arrest is because he probably remembered the body camera he's wearing. I'll never be able to prove it. But I'm 95% certain that something that means "because I said so" would have been the only reason he gave.
I've had to deduce that the reason to remove the tags is because the registration address hadn't been changed in a year -- which is outrageous, if true.
I'm guessing this is the reason because I got a ticket for not changing mine in 10 days once. And I couldn't pay the ticket right away because the ticket wasn't in the police stations's system --before I flew to another city for two weeks for my job. (This was years and years ago.) I tried to resolve the issue and pay by phone while I was away. Couldn't get it done. I had to drive to the police station, hoping I didn't get pulled over again right after I left the airport a few weeks later.
So I'm guessing he's taking the tags because she answered him honestly about when they moved.
Live and learn. The answer to "When did you move?" is "Yesterday."
I hope Williams wins millions because politeness in the voice and respect are not synonymous.
All that cop had to do was answer Williams questions thoroughly and let her to call her grandfather (who owns the car).
He did NOT even have to be empathetic enough to understand that damn near all black folk are terrified of white police officers now that so many of them have murdered us on video without going to jail.
And instead of getting the keys, that officer could have had Williams and her child get out of the car and stand some distance away while he took the plates off the car --after she calls her grandfather. That's the other way the officer ensures he doesn't get run over. Because I totally get that.
I totally understand making sure he doesn't get run over.
I do not understand TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS to make the decision to wrestle her to the ground, frisk her, cuff her, and arrest her.
In good ole USA, that only makes sense when the cop is white and the woman you're arresting is NOT-WHITE.
This could easily have been avoided. And I imagine it has been avoided over and over again for white people in white suburbs across the country.
Obey me now n-word was the message Takara Williams got no matter how polite his voice was.
THE BODYCAM VIDEOhttp://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=90924&siteSection=bmaq&videoId=32367816
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I'm sitting in my living room, calm, and able to think clearly. And it still took me a while to figure out why he was asking for the car keys. And I shouldn't have had to "figure it out." Officer Carter should have answered the questions he was asked in the order he was asked them.
Police Officers are to protect and serve. They are paid with our tax dollars. We are their employers. Until police officers start getting that in the small insignificant situations, they are going to continue to kill black and brown people at will. And it's a matter of time before they start doing the same thing to white people.
Yeah, I understand that this behavior is white supremacy based and that white people are mostly safe from this treatment. But I also understand human nature. When people feel all powerful they want that feeling to expand. That feeling has to be as addicting as cocaine. Eventually it won't be enough to just beat on black and brown folks.
White cops are currently watching other white cops get away with murder --even when that murder has been videotaped. This has to be having some sort of an effect on them.
And I think that effect will be for cops (all of shades of them) to start killing more and more indiscriminately.
White folks thought they were safe from illegal drugs. They weren't. It just took longer for illegal drugs to become "cool" where they live. Now their children are dying too and they want drug addiction to be treated like a disease -- hence the bipartisan support to reign in Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his desire to throw everybody in jail for the tiniest drug offense.
Let's hope it doesn't take 20 to 30 years, this time, for white folks to realize that white people are in jeopardy of being killed by police for nothing too.
You are lying. https://youtu.be/h1q_VtUzN3g
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