Thanks for the article, and the perspective. I’m so sorry this happened to you. It shouldn’t have.

Your recounting has some bitterness toward the white woman for reporting a crime as though she is complicit in the harassment. Granted, the description she gave was rather vague. She may not have gotten a good look at the person trying to break into her house. It’s clear you didn’t meet it though. I don’t know how any reasonable person could mistake a puffy coat with something more like a peacoat. That said, she’s just doing what she’s supposed to do to protect her home and her community. It’s not her fault the police used the incident to harass you.

I bring this up not to diminish your story but because I’ve been the white woman in your story where something similar happened, I called the police, and gave the best description I could.

I saw the guy from afar running away. He glanced back once while leaving the scene. I saw enough to give police relative height, weight, build, clothing, haircut, and one really distinguishing characteristic. I did not see his face clearly.

My description: he had to have been younger than 30, not a younger teenager. About 5’10". Skinny. Probably around 140 lbs. He was wearing baggy medium blue ripped jeans and a long sleeve dark maroon plaid shirt, also baggy. I pointed the direction he went and mentioned he was cutting through brush and undergrowth.

The police asked what race he was and if I noticed his hair color.

I paused and thought a moment. Huh.

I said, “ you know I’m not sure. I think he was multiracial. He had brown, closely cut, tight curly hair, perhaps a very sparse mustache but that may have been shadows, a pronounced widow’s peak.”

The policeman asked me what I meant by multiracial and what was a widow’s peak.

I said best guess his ancestry included, Caucasian, Hispanic, and African. He wasn’t white like me (very pale), or you (the cop (tanned, but definitely not a POC) but he was very light skinned. A widow’s peak is when your hairline dips down to a point in the middle of your forehead. Think the old Dracula movies or Grandpa on the Munsters. The cop looked to be past 50 so I figured he’d get the reference.

This was at the cusp of the proliferation of smartphones so the references are out of date and I couldn’t just Google it and show him a pic.

Still.

They go cruising around looking for a suspect and call me down to look at some guys. Two were black, one medium toned, one very dark neither of whom were wearing blue jeans or a red shirt. And a Hispanic man wearing a short-sleeved faded red Coca-cola shirt and dark blue denim jeans.

Only one of these gentlemen had closely cropped hair. None of them had a widow’s peak. The one who most closely matched the physical criteria was clearly way too young amongst other things, being a teenager walking home from school when he got picked up. Which just goes to show. Closest was way off.

I got aggrevated with the police when they kept asking if I was sure it wasn’t any of them. I brought up the widow’s peak again and they kinda yelled at me for wasting their time. There were derogatory comments about hysterical women and motherhood making women lose it.

Yeah.

I can’t tell you how bad I felt, especially about that boy. I was clear that the guy I saw wasn’t young enough to be a teen even though he was skinny. I was clear that the guy I saw was light skinned brown tight curls but not traditionally African hair. I was clear.

This kid was too tall, too heavy, too young, too dark, hair too long, not wearing the clothes I described, and definitely no widow’s peak. And he was so scared.

He was so scared.

He was just a boy.

I saw him outside with his mother when she came to pick him up. I was angry because of the comments and how my time was wasted. He was trembling and trying not to cry. His mom was yelling at him about what he was doing to be picked up — he musta been up to something. I got over myself real quick. I felt so horrible. Man, I just can’t even.

So, with my (then) 8 month old on my hip, I slowly approached them. I interrupted his mom’s tirade and apologized. I told them what happened at my apt complex and that I couldn’t understand why her son had been brought in since he was nothing like the description I gave. I asked if he was okay. He nodded. We were both trying not to cry. His mother softened and hugged her son. They both started crying.

She must have been so scared.

I just couldn’t stop apologizing. I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t my fault either though. This wasn’t what I wanted. This isn’t justice. This isn’t safety. This isn’t community. I’m feeling that mother’s fear and pain cause I’m one now too. My child won’t always be on my hip. I just can’t even describe. There are no words. You either know or you don’t. He was just a boy. He seemed like a sweet kid.

The next week the guy who had been skulking around and messing with my window broke into my neighbor’s apt. My neighbor was handicapped. MS and older. Almost to the point of needing a wheelchair, pretty much homebound without assistance. She ended up in the hospital. I take it the guy was looking for drug money. He stole all her meds to boot.

They eventually made an arrest. He fit my description. That widow’s peak was very pronounced.

It may surprise a lot of people to realize that as a white woman, I don’t really trust the police either. Not anymore. I did as a child because I was taught to and because they were more worthy of it when I was young. I’m nearly 50 now so I’m just old enough to barely remember when policing was a lot more like Andy Griffith, Mayberry RFD. If that’s confusing, I grew up in small towns so the militarization didn’t happen there as quickly as in the cities. And those shows were reruns and antiquated in many respects when I was young. There’s been an erosion of trust over the course of years. Since the “war on drugs” and scared straight.

This wasn’t the only incident in the past 30 years but it has stuck with me in a weird way. In some of the others I was targeted or labeled. In this one, I was used. They used my whiteness and femininity and new motherhood to harass. And when I didn’t go along, I was maligned and called crazy. And somebody ended up in the hospital because of it. 3 innocent men were harassed because of it. I was used and discarded. But hey, I guess the police had their fun for the day at the expense of all of us. Wonder how many points they got for that one?

And so . . . I believe you. I believe the Black community. I stand with BLM. Its time to demilitarize the police. That will include greatly defunding the police and retraining.

That said, I don’t want no police either. It was pretty nice when the police would help you change a tire, find your lost dog, stop traffic and help disabled people across the street, jimmy your door open when you locked your keys inside a running vehicle, etc. It was nice knowing they were there to help and keep us all safe. To not hold them suspect and wonder how they’re gonna try to screw somebody for some sick entertainment. To wonder about itchy trigger fingers and if this guy is gonna lose it every time you see one.

I kinda miss those days.