eye95
Well-known member
Here is the story a law student related of harassment by police.
After leaving Bar Review on Thursday, March 31, 2011, I began the short walk to my nearby apartment on the Corner. About one hundred yards from home, I noticed a police car approaching me. As it neared, the squad car slowed down, blue lights flashing. One of the officers inside pointed the car’s spotlight on me. The UVA officers (both white) stopped their car, got out and confronted me. They demanded that I provide identification and I complied. When I asked the officers if there was a problem, one responded, “You fit the description of someone we’re looking for.” I asked what the description was and what had happened. One of the officers responded, “You don’t need to worry about that.” I told them that I was very close to my apartment and, while examining my Pennsylvania driver’s license, one of the officers replied, “This doesn’t say you live on Wertland Street.” It was clear at that point that the officers were toying with me for their own entertainment. When the officers discovered my UVA I.D., and informed them that I was a law student, they looked at one another and sarcastically said, “Oh, he’s a law student.” The fact that I informed them that I was in law school made the situation even more tense. It seemed as though my encounter was drawing to a close so, having just taken Criminal Procedure, I knew to ask the officer whether I was free to leave. When he responded, “We just need to make sure you’re not carrying any weapons . . . it’ll only take a second.” I was doubly surprised: the officers had all but expressed that I was not the person they were looking for (if such a person even existed), yet the two were about to subject me to a search. I knew that all the cases, regulations, and remedies that I learned in class would be of no avail. These two officers alone controlled my fate.
At that point, one of the officers spun me around, pushed me toward their car, and placed my hands on the rear of the vehicle. Imprinted on my mind was the police treatment of Oscar Grant Jr., Amadou Diallo, and Abner Louima, so naturally I did not resist. Standing there, I saw dozens of people staring at me as they returned home from last call. One of the officers searched me, removing all of my belongings from my pockets. The other officer then proceeded to rifle through my wallet (despite the implausibility that I could hide a weapon there). Whenever I attempted to turn to answer their questions, they forcibly turned me back around to face the car. When their questioning ended, I asked the officers for their names and badge numbers. One of them responded, “You don’t need to worry about that either.” After a few more questions, they told me I was free to go. They then informed me that they would be following me to my apartment “just to make sure [I got] home okay.” The two of them proceeded to closely tail me (blue lights still flashing) until I reached my apartment. As I opened my door and the squad car pulled away, I knew that there would be no remedy for the indignity that I suffered at the hands of two of the University of Virginia’s “finest.”