I see people posting their stories about excessive policing. So here's TWO of mine: **DISCLAIMER** These stories are not made up, they actually took place. Also it's 2 stories, so it's long. READ & Don't be lazy! I typed this all to show how this is nothing new. The first is when I was about 10 or 11, someone called the cops stating that they saw someone shooting a gun in the air and they said it was my cousin (who lived with us at the time), but he wasn't even anywhere near the area that the person was shooting, so the cops came, came in our house... Guns drawn and rummaging through the house. At the same time I was in the basement getting something for my mom and as I come back up the stairs and back into the house through the back door, I was staring down the barrel of the cops gun! He had it pointed right between my eyes about 2 inches from my face. I was frozen with fear and he proceeded to scream "DON'T MOVE!!!" to me. Although I was sure I looked like a child, I wondered if maybe HE couldn't see that I was a child, and also what I could have possibly done for him to be holding a gun to my face. They ended up arresting my cousin because he did have a gun (even though he wasn't the person shooting). But the cop kept the gun in my face the whole time. This was in 1996.... It's 2016 😕 ------------------------------------------- The second happened in 2005 if I'm not mistaken. My dad came to NJ to pic me up (he came up from NC) and as we were leaving, he took the wrong direction onto the Interstate and we ended up in Denville, NJ (just about 30 minutes away from the city of Paterson... Where I'm from...in NORTHERN NJ) it was about 2:30-3:00AM At that time cellphones weren't advanced like they are now so there were no GPS apps to check, so we pulled over. We saw a cop so WE flag HIM down to ask for directions. He circles around and hops out the car with his partner and we proceed to ask them to direct us back to the highway. That's when things took a turn for the worst, they started shining their bright ass flashlights & asking us BOTH for our Iicenses, (I was 19 and not driving by the way) and I said "Why???, we just need directions, my dad came to pick me up and we are going back to NC!" They told me to shut up and they looked at my license and proceeded to tell me how it didn't look like me (I had a different hair color big fuckin whoop), and his partner proceeded to ask my dad if he had any DRUGS, GUNS, or DEAD BODIES in the car! The wanted to search the back, he said no because they had no reason to, and they told him to get out of the car and proceeded to frisk him and harass him more (out of my eye sight and I didn't feel comfortable with that), so I get out of the car and started screaming "Leave him alone! You are harassing us for no reason!" Again the cop told me to shut up but this time had his gun drawn at me and told me to get back in the car and to mind my business! MY DAD IS MY BUSINESS! I saw the fear in my dad's eyes as he said "Just get back in the car Naj, it's going to be ok" I got back in furious and crying uncontrollably, because I could not understand why we were being treated like criminals when all we did was get lost! Of course when they couldn't find anything else to harass us for they let us go and had the nerve to try to give directions at that point! I could have been a memory more than once at the hands of "law enforcement" all for being a black girl in my fuckin skin! There wouldn't have been any hashtags because in both of these incidents, social media was non existent or not as prevalent, no posts about how sad it was, or how the cops should be prosecuted. No... I would have just been a MEMORY. 😢 #TellYourStory
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